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Sensible Etiquette 



BEST SOCIETY, 



CUSTOMS, MANNERS, MORALS, AND 
HOME CULTURE. 



COMPILED FROM THE BEST AUTHORITIES 



BY MRS. H. O. WARD. 



" A knowledge of etiquette is a knowledge of the customs of society at its best. There 
is no one who may not be instructed in some points that it is for his advantage to 
know.'' — Modern Etiquette. 

"The first years of a man's life are precious, since they lay the foundation of the 
merit of the rest. Whatever care is used in the education of children it is still too little 
to answer the end." — Marchioness de Lcunbert. 



[SECOND EDITION.] 




PHILADELPHIA: 

PORTER & COATES. 
1878. 






" Young girls, young wives, young mothers, you hold the sceptre ; in your souls, much 
more than in the laws of legislators, now repose the futurity of the world and the desti- 
nies of the human race." — L. Aime- Martin. 

" This is the age of social reform." — Emily Shirreff. 

" America is the land of the future, where mankind may plant, essay, and resolve all 
social problems." — Heraldic Journal. 

" Education is the keynote of the best society." — Miss Faithful. 

" The best direction for going through life, with good manners, is to feel that every- 
body, no matter how rich or how poor, needs all the kindness they can get from others 
in this world." 

" To do a little toward making people happy, toward making them kind to one 
another, toward opening their eyes to the beauty of beautiful behavior — these were her 
ambitions." 

" Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them." — 
Scripture. 



Exchai 
A*j»y and Navy Oiult 

May a ". I92I 



COPYRIGHTED, 1878, 
By PORTER & COATES. 



DEDICATION. 



TO MY CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN, 

I dedicate this compilation, hoping that it may serve as a moni- 
tor, all the years of their lives, to remind them of the training of 
their childhood and youth. In the same spirit, I dedicate it 



TO ALL YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES, 

"With the hope that some of them may be interested in its pages, 
as recalling to them the home instruction they have received ; for the 
essential rules of good behavior are everywhere the same, although 
social observances, forms and ceremonies, differ with the customs and 
habits of different sections of our great republic, as with the various 
nations of the world in which we live. 



TO YOUNG MOTHERS, 

Also, this book is dedicated, with the knowledge that there is much 
in its pages that will aid them in the judicious training of their chil- 
dren. Let them not become impatient at finding the same topics 
touched upon again and again, since it is only in this way that their 
importance can be fixed in th? memory, 

A celebrated teacher when asked how many, and what, were the 
requisites for the successful instruction of the young, answered, as did 
Demosthenes of the importance of action in oratory : "Three: First, 
repetition; second, repetition; third, repetition." 

This book is not one to be taken from the circulating library or 
borrowed, skimmed over, and returned. 

It contains some of the wisest teachings of past generations as to 
the importance of forming good manners and correct habits in youth, 
together with some of the customs and rules that govern social inter- 
course in the best society of our own generation. 

( vii ) 



V1U DEDICATION. 

If read aright, it will inspire us to do our share toward "putting 
down " our faults, instead of trying to " put down " one another ; to 
do a little toward making all whom we meet happy ; toward making 
known to the rising generation that " of all the cankers of human 
happiness, none corrodes with so silent and so baneful an influence 
as indolence ; that a mind always employed is always happy ; that 
the idle are the only wretched ;" — that, as the Hindu scriptures teach, 
virtue is a service man owes himself, and though there were no heaven, 
nor any God to rule the world, it were not less the binding law of 
life ; and also that " our Saviour measured souls only by their love, 
preferring the forgiveness of an injury to a sacrifice." 

The compiler has executed her task in vain, if the book, glanced 
over out of curiosity, is returned to the shelf without any of its sug- 
gestions being carried into practice. 

Hakrietta Oxnard Ward. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



PAGE 



Letters — Notes — Invitations — Acceptances — Regrets 
— o era-boxes — Exceptions to General Rules— So- 
ciety — Solicitude — Character, 13 

CHAPTER II. 

General Instructions — Calls and Cards — Rules for 
Water: ; n t g-Places — The Social Dogberry — Proofs of 
Good Breeding — Nuisances in Society, ... 50 

CHAPTER III. 
Recapitulate > and Added Rules with Comments — A Sen- 
sible Proposition — The Ethics of Hospitality — Cads, 
Slanderers, and Scandal Mongers — Influence of 
Newspapers — Young America — Aristippus'S Philoso- 
phy, 98 

CHAPTER IV. 

Breakfasts — Lunches — Luncheons — Teas — Kettle- 
drums — Cure for Gossip — Social Problems — Good 
Society — Bad Society — Woman's Mission, . . . 128 

CHAPTER V. 

Dinners — Exclusive Society — The Makers of Manners 

— Living for Others, 156 

CHAPTER VI. 

Receptions — Parties— Balls — Young Men under Twenty- 
one — Influence of Sisters, 190 

CHAPTER VII. 

Conflicting Authorities and Opinions on Points of Eti- 
quette, with Recapitulatory Remarks and Comments, 230 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Dress — Toilet — Mourning, ....... 250 

(ix ) 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

PAGE 

Salutations — The Promenade — Introductions — Ameri- 
can Men — Englishmen — The Lobred Type of Women 
— Self-Respect, . . . . . . . 4 273 

CHAPTER X. 

fi. 
Home Education — Company Manners — Genealogy — 

Requisites for Success — The Test of Nobleness— .-So- 
cieties Pin-pricks — Noble and Ignoble Patience — 
True Education — Life's Shipwrecks, .... 330 

CHAPTER XI. 
Requirements for Happiness in Married Life — The Mar- 
riage Ceremony, ; . . 302 

CHAPTER XII. 

Mixed Society — The Fast School — Difference between 
Innocence and-Virtue — The Mother's Infl] ence and 
the Influence of Books in Forming Character, . 355 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Chaperons — Customs — Showing Superficialities — Har- 
vard Examinations — Thorough Education — Higher 
Culture of Women, 38-3 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Miscalled Education — Want of Individuality — Origi- 
nal People — Aimless Study — Objects of Woman's 
Higher Culture, . 415 

CHAPTER XV. 
Dead Laws — Social Reforms — Disinterested Lives — Sen- 
sitiveness and Sympathy — Love of Approbation — 
Authors and Critics — Reformers and Leaders, . . 4 "7 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Our Best Society — Its Strength and Its Weaknesses, . 473 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Home Life — The Disciplines of Life — The Life Immortal, 510 

Addenda, 549 

Appendix, 565 



PREFACE. 



This compilation, made from various authorities upon Home 
Culture, Etiquette, and Good Manners, has been arranged for 
publication (as if written by one person) with the hope of meet- 
ing some of the special requirements of our social life. The names 
of the writers quoted from, where the names are known, will be 
found in the Appendix. 

The compiler's attention was first called to the existing need 
of some uniform understanding of the customs that rule our best 
society, by an article that appeared in " Lippincott's Magazine," 
March, 1873 ; by the nature of the local criticism of that essay ; 
and by an unworthy review of it that appeared in "The New 
York Tribune." 

tw The Young Lady's Friend," a book revised and edited by the 
author of the essay referred to, has for years been given as a prize 
to the graduating pupils in various schools and in Catholic insti- 
tutions. It is especially designed for the instruction of girls upon 
leaving school, impressing upon them the fact that they have 
only begun their education ; that, with the tools which their 
school course has given them, they must "mould their own ma- 
terials, quarry their own natures, make their own characters." 

A journalist, in announcing "Sensible Etiquette," says : "It 
is announced that a book upon good manners, bearing the above 
title, is to be issued during the year, as a companion to 'The 
Young Lady's Friend.' This is what we have been looking for, 
as we feit quite sure, after glancing over the excellent instructions 
in the latter volume, in connection with the events which led to 
its republication, that it has been prepared, in part, for the pur- 
pose of heralding the way for a second and more complete 
manual. In short, every line of the introduction, by the au- 
thoress of ' Unsettled Points of Etiquette,' leads to this conclu- 

( xi ) 



Xll PREFACE. 

sion ; and every page of the book itself inculcates the truth that 
self-education begins where school education ends, and that, 
although a parent or teacher may stimulate the mind and 
mould the manner, each individual must form his or her own 
character." 

The compiler of this book willingly acknowledges that " Sensi- 
ble Etiquette and Home Culture " is the fruit of seed sown by the 
writer of " Unsettled Points of Etiquette." She has not forgot- 
ten the nature of the criticism that her predecessor in the same 
field encountered, and she intends to follow up her compilation 
with a history* of the anonymous criticism of that essay, which 
criticism, not pretending to deal with the subject-matter except- 
ing in the way of misquoting and misrepresenting it, called in 
gossip and slander to its aid, interpolating fictitious events in the 
life of the essayist, and catering to the amusement of "the Wen- 
hams and the Falconers " in her own circle, as well as to the 
gloating enjoyment of a class that alwa}-s relishes keenly any 
attack upon its superiors. 

If this compilation is to be assailed in like manner, as predicted, 
and its compiler is to be pilloried, as was the author of " Unset- 
tled Points," its readers at least will have an opportunity of 
learning how the book notices of critics are often written ; how 
personal ill-will finds vent in pretended critiques; and how re- 
viewers, professing to feel their moral responsibility, can contra- 
dict each other in their reviews. 

This compilation, then, is given to the public, as a companion 
to the revised edition, of 1873, of Mrs. Farrar's "Young Lady's 
Friend," which excellent work does not profess to take up in 
detail the various rules that govern intercourse in modern society, 
although admitting their importance and advocating their use. 

A knowledge of etiquette has been defined as a knowledge of 
the rules of society at its best ; but these rules often are not suited 
to our mode of life, or to our republican society ; and the word 
etiquette always grates upon the ear. For this reason the com- 
piler has chosen the title of "Sensible Etiquette," introducing 
into her work such rules as are suited to a republic, and discard- 
ing all such as are useless or unsuitable. These rules will be 
found to facilitate hospitalities and to make social intercourse 
more agreeable, when all the members of society hold them as 

* See " Anonymous Criticism," by Mrs. H. O. Ward. 



PREFACE. X1H 

binding rules, and faithfully regard their observance. Herein 
lies the most striking point of difference between the best society 
in America and the best society in Europe. Unmannerly people 
are found everywhere, and this century has been called "the 
century of license in speech and manners and morals combined : 
the most unromantic, beastly, and tiresome century of all cen- 
turies since the birth of Christ ;" but there are certain observ- 
ances handed down from one cultured generation to another, 
which are strictly regarded in the best societ}- in Europe, and 
which even the unmannerly dare not neglect there. In America, 
many families, who know the importance of these customs, grow 
careless in their observance of them, because they are so generally 
ignored or disregarded ; and this neglect gives rise to constant 
chafings and misunderstandings. One suspects another of an 
intentional rudeness, when it is often ignorance alone which 
causes the omission or neglect of a duty. The first principles of 
enjoyment of social intercourse thus violated at the foundation, 
the entire structure of society becomes insecure. " On manners, 
refinement, rules of good breeding, and even the forms of eti- 
quette, we are forever talking, judging our neighbors severely by 
the breach of traditionary and unwritten laws, and choosing our 
society and even our friends by the touchstone of courtesy," 
writes an English author ; but, as it is well known that there is 
no subject upon which individuals are more sensitive than that 
of their manners, no one is courageous enough to speak on these 
subjects in the presence of those who violate these laws. There- 
fore, as the polished affect to despise the book of etiquette as un- 
necessary, those wanting in polish are left to conclude that such 
books are useless, and that there are no rules that are worth 
knowing which they do not already know ; while in reality there 
is no one living who may not be instructed in some points which 
it is for his advantage to know. It is only when books of eti- 
quette are themselves ridiculous in their treatment of the subject, 
that they are held in disrepute ; for we all know that the wise 
and great, down all the centuries, from Isocrates to Emerson, have 
not handled the subject of good manners in any way but as one 
worthy of their consideration and of the attention of all mankind. 
The Marchioness de Lambert gave utterance to the opinions 
of the best bred in her time, when she wrote in a letter to her 
son, "Nothing is more shameful than a voluntary rudeness. 
Men have found it necessary as well as agreeable to unite for 



XIV PREFACE. 

the common good ; they have made laws to restrain the wicked ; 
they have agreed among themselves as to the duties of society, 
and have annexed an honorable character to the practice of those 
duties. He is the honest man that observes them with the most 
exactness, and the instances of them multiply in proportion to 
the degree and nicety of a person's honor." 

In the selection of various customs and observances among the 
wellbred, in their classification, and in the treatment of other 
topics which belong to home culture, the compiler has executed 
her work with the sincerest desire to be of use to the young. She 
will not have labored in vain if she is able to show that it is mis- 
taken pride and misplaced vanity which leads persons to wish to 
have it thought that no social nicety is other than familiar and 
natural to them, when it is an acknowledged fact that no matter 
how well born or how well trained a youth may be, he must ac- 
quaint himself with the changing customs of the times, if he 
would not seem to be wanting in knowledge of the world and the 
ways of the world. 

Even should the compiler fail in her object, there will still be 
left to her that consciousness of her desire to benefit the rising 
generation, which is tlie best reward of every well-meant endeavor 
in behalf of the young. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



" If manners make the man, manners are the woman herself; be- 
cause with her they are the outward and visible tokens of her inward 
and spiritual grace, or disgrace, and flow instinctively, whether good 
or bad, from the instincts of her inner nature. . . . 

" We can no more mend men by rules than by coercion. We 
must teach them to mend their manners of their own free will. . . . 

..." For my part, I should like to make every man, woman and 
child whom I meet, discontented with themselves, even as I am dis- 
contented with myself. I should like to awaken in them, about 
their physical, their intellectual, their moral condition, that divine 
discontent which is the parent, first of upward aspiration, and then 
of self-control, thought, effort to fulfil that aspiration even in part. . . . 
This is the very germ and first upgrowth of all virtue." — Rev. 
Charles Kingsley. 

The compiler of this volume is well aware that it is customary 
upon introducing any work to the public, professedly treating 
upon an improvement in manners, to apologize for so doing, 
but she does not consider any such apology necessary. Society 
has its grammar as language has, and the rules of that grammar 
must be learned. The word " wellbred " shows us that manner 
is a thing to be acquired and taught, since it depends upon the 
breeding and bringing up. Surely those who have been well 
brought up need no apologies made to them for efforts in behalf 
of others who are not equally well trained ; and as the ideal of 
what constitutes true politeness is continually changing (or 
rather, the modes of showing politeness are continually chang- 
ing, for the principle remains the same at all times and in all 
places), no one will be found among this class of persons who 
will be so unreasonable as to object to the revision of old 
rules, or the setting forth of the accepted code of manners for the 

(xv ) 



XVI INTRODUCTORY. 

present day. Therefore, for such persons no apology is needed ; 
and certainly where home culture has been neglected, where the 
daughters and the sons have received no attention in the forma- 
tion of their manners under the guidance of their parents, they 
will require no apologies for that instruction which, if they 
make proper use of, will fit them for the society of gentlewomen 
and gentlemen. 

Originally, a gentleman was defined to be one who, without 
any title of nobility, wears a coat of arms. This is why the 
descendants of many of the early colonists preserve with such 
pride and care the time-stained armorial bearings which their 
forefathers brought with them from their homes in the mother 
country. Although despising titles as many did, and ignoring 
the rights of kings as supported by their royalist relations, they 
still clung to the "grand old name of gentleman." Kace tells 
in man as in other animals, but it is no longer the only requi- 
site ; neither will learning and wealth, united with blood, make 
a man a gentleman, not even though his possessions should 
exceed those of Croesus. Nor will race, education, and wealth 
combined, make a woman a gentlewoman, if she is wanting in 
refinement and consideration for the feelings of others. Men 
and women of sensitive organizations may possess that unself- 
ishness of nature and that kindly consideration for others which 
characterize the gentleman and the gentlewoman, and these 
qualities may show themselves in such a way as to be mistaken 
for what some call innate good breeding ; but in reality there is 
no such thing : good manners are only acquired by education 
and observation, followed up by habitual practice at home and 
in society. This, then, is the test, the touchstone that reveals 
to us the gentlewoman and the gentleman, viz., good manners. 
It is less distinct in appearance, far more subtle, far more diffi- 
cult to attain than the old distinction ; but in these days, he who 
does not possess it, even though he has a ducal title, need not 
expect to be called a gentleman by gentlemen ; nor can a woman 
without it aspire to being considered a lady by ladies. ~No per- 
son who essays to make this truth understood, need give in ex- 
cuse of such efforts any of the extenuating reasons set down in 
other works upon the same subject. 

It is the duty of American women to do all in their power 
toward the formation of so high a standard of morals and man- 
ners that the tendency of society will be upward instead of down- 



INTRODUCTORY. XV11 

ward, seeking to make it in every respect equal to the best soci- 
ety of any nation. Manners and morals are indissolubly allied, 
and no society can be good where they are bad. " Les hommes 
font les his, les femmes font les moeurs." Here is one field for 
woman to labor in — a work for her to perform ; one of the mis- 
sions acknowledged by men even as rightfully her own. Thus 
can she aid in promoting a branch of that great educational 
movement which is engrossing the sympathies and prompting 
the generous labors of so many wise and able thinkers of our 
time. 

When the late Charles Astor Bristed wrote : " To a certain 
extent rudeness is still a characteristic of our people, and down- 
right insolence not unfrequently prevails," he gave bold utter- 
ance to a truth which many have felt, but which few have found 
courage to utter ; for it does require moral courage of the high- 
est type to attack the weaknesses and the foibles of mankind — 
weaknesses and foibles which are shared, in one form or another, 
by all who possess the birthright of humanity. 

Dr. Mayo says of a character in oue of his novels : " She 
rather admired a high standard of refinement, and culture, and 
social morality, but she was not going to put herself out in any 
way to correct the vices or elevate the tone of society. There 
was not much of the reformer and nothing of* the martyr in her 
composition." This is worldly wisdom ; but if society were 
altogether made up of such women, there would be but little 
hope for that advancement in refinement which the cultivated 
look for, or that correction of the errors and weaknesses of so- 
ciety which the thoughtful and the kindhearted desire. The 
same writer says truly : "The only excuse for the existence in 
this country of a set, or sets, pretending to be at the head of 
social life is, that thej^ really fulfil certain important functions, 
that they really offer a higher standard of elegance and culture, 
that they really encourage an improvement in manners, and 
stimulate the growth and spread of refined taste. This is their 
only raison oVetre. If they do not this, their exclusiveness is an 
insolent pretension, a contemptible humbug." 

When it is admitted that culture is the first requirement of 
good society, then self-improvement will be the aim of each and 
all its members ; and manners will improve with the cultivation 
of the mind, until the pleasure and harmony of social intercourse 
js no longer marred by the introduction of discordant elements. 



XV111 INTRODUCTORY. 

When this stage is reached, exclusiveness will no longer seem to 
be a pretension, a humbug ; for those only will be excluded 
whose education and manners are such as to render them unfit 
for enjoyment in, and appreciation of, the best society. Good 
manners are even more essential to harmony in society than is 
full instruction of the mind and advanced education of its pow- 
ers, and are as much an acquisition as is knowledge in any of its 
various forms. Our parents and instructors are not our only 
teachers ; they do but commence the life-long work in which we 
perfect ourselves, if faithful to our charge. 

Our best teachers are the illbred, lor they hold up to us a mir- 
ror in which we see how unlovely, how unattractive, women and 
men can make themselves, when their conduct gives evidence of 
a want of that degree of self-respect which alone leads men and 
women to respect the rights and the feelings of others, and to do 
as they would be done by. The religion of the golden rule is the 
basis of all politeness — a religion which teaches us to forget our- 
selves, to be kind to our neighbors, and to be civil even to our 
enemies. The appearance of so being and doing, is what society 
demands as good manners. Where differing views are held as 
to social duties and privileges, where distinctions are made other 
than those conferred by education, cultivation, refinement, and 
morality, it is quite true that this Christian politeness, which 
leads men and women to be strict only with themselves, and 
indulgent with others, must be dispensed with. The man or 
woman in such circles whose life is guided by it, is liable to be 
misunderstood. The wellbred are easy to get along with, for 
they are as quick to make an apology when they have been at 
fault, as they are to accept one when it is made. " The noble- 
hearted onry understand the noble-hearted. ' ' 

Impoliteness is very demoralizing, and in a society where the 
majority are rude from the thoughtlessness of ignorance, or re- 
miss from the insolence of bad breeding, the iron rule, u Do unto 
others as they do unto you," is oftener put in practice than the 
golden one. As savages know nothing of the virtues of forgive- 
ness, and think those who are not revengeful are wanting in spirit, 
so the illbred do not understand undeserved civilities, extended 
to promote the general interests of society, and to carry out the 
injunction of Scripture to strive after the things that make for 
peace. 

It is good manners which divides societv into sets. One set 



INTRODUCTORY. XIX 

has no breeding at all, another has a little, another more, another 
enough ; and between that which has none and that which has 
enough, there are more shades than in the rainbow. Good man- 
ners are the same in essence everywhere — at courts, in fashion- 
able society here, in literary circles, in domestic life — they never 
change ; but social observances, customs, and points of etiquette 
vary with the age, and with the people. 

It is in hope of bringing about a better general understanding 
as to the importance of fulfilling our social duties, that this com- 
pilation has been made. 

Dickens showed his appreciation of the superiority of the in- 
struction given in books over oral teaching, when, in "Nicholas 
Nickleby," he put in the mouth of the master these words : " We 
go upon the practical mode of teaching, Nickleby. AVhen a boy 
knows this out of book, he goes and does it." Carl vie says : 
"On all sides are we not driven to the conclusion that, 01 the 
things which man can do or make below, by far the most mo- 
mentous, wonderful, and worthy are the things we call books ? 
Those poor bits of rag-paper, with black ink on them, what have 
they not done, what are they not doing? Is it not verily, at 
bottom, the highest act of man's faculty that produces a book ? 
It is the thought of man, the true thaumaturgic virtue, by which 
man works all things whatsoever. Of all priesthoods, aristoc- 
racies, governing classes, extant in the world, there is no class 
comparable for importance to that priesthood of the writers of 
books. The man of letters is uttering forth, in such words as 
he has, the inspired soul of him ; all that a man, in any case, 
can do. I say inspired, for what we call originality, sincerity, 
genius, the heroic quality we have no good name for, signifies 
that. Complaint is often made, in these times, of what we call 
the disorganized condition of society ; how ill many arranged 
forces of society fulfil their work ; how many powerful forces are 
seen working in a wasteful, chaotic, altogether unarranged man- 
ner On the beaten road there is tolerable travelling, but 

it is sore work, and many have to perish, fashioning a path 
through the impassable 

" The writer of a book, is not he a preacher, preaching to all 
men in all times and places? .... 

"Books persuade men. Not the wretchedest circulating li- 
brary novel, which foolish girls thumb and con in remote villages, 
but will help to regulate the actual practical weddings and house- 



XX INTRODUCTORY. 

holds of those foolish girls. So Celia felt, so Clifford acted ; the 
foolish Theorem of Life, stamped into those young brains, comes 
out as a solid practice one day 

u The writers of newspapers, pamphlets, poems, books, these 
are the real working effective church of a modern country." 

Thus Carlyle shows what importance he places upon the teach- 
ing of books. Placing like importance upon their teaching, the 
compiler of these pages has endeavored to do her work, feeling 
that it is of the highest importance that every one should take 
pains to be informed concerning the right and the best in social 
intercourse and usage. This knowledge is not born with the 
individual ; it comes only with cultivation. 

Points which to some minds are seemingly unessential, are not 
so as long as they convey to any minds anything that is wound- 
ing — like inferiority in station, or premeditated rudeness, such, 
for instance, as the signing of letters, and the wording of regrets. 

It is trifles which shade off the points of difference between 
the various degrees of breeding. Why not then make ourselves 
acquainted with all these various shades, if it is true that what- 
ever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well ? These points, 
as has been declared, constitute part of what is in the whole no 
arbitrary and fanciful set of dicta. It is a sequence of logical 
deductions and applications. Necessities of social life produced 
conventionalities ; they are the harness in which the race is run. 
Those who ridicule and defy them, who take pleasure in outrag- 
ing them, give evidence that they are not accustomed to their 
observance, and that neither they themselves belong, nor have 
their ancestors belonged, to the ranks of the most highly culti- 
vated of their time. The ignorant and the uncultivated are the 
only ones who undervalue the requirements of good breeding. 
It has been said that the whole object of these laws is to main- 
tain the dignity of the individual and the comfort of the com- 
munity. Their observance takes away the desagremens that 
might result from the meeting of people of opposite character 
and education, rounds off the sharp angles, makes life easy, and 
allows us to slip easily over all the dangerous places in our views 
and wishes and experiences which are nobody's business but 
our own. Obedience to these laws is to social life what obedi- 
ence to law is in political life. "Whatever enjoyment we have 
from society, from that agglomeration of morning calls, break- 
fasts, dinner parties, luncheons, evening entertainments, pro- 



INTRODUCTORY. XXI 

longed visits, rides, drives, operas, theatres, and all which go to 
make up the business of gay life, and some portion of which en- 
ters into all life, even the humblest, since the very poorest among 
us have their gatherings, and enjoy their pleasures— whatever 
enjoyment we have from this association, and from our daily ex- 
istence, so far as others are concerned, is possible only through 
our obedience to the laws of that etiquette which governs the 
whole machinery, and keeps every cog and wheel in place, and 
at its own work, which prevents jostling, and carries all things 
along comfortably to their consummation. Instead then of re- 
garding the understanding of these laws as a trivial thing, we 
should rather look to see if the observance of them will not lead 
the way to a still higher level of life and manners ; for we may 
rest assured that a fine etiquette, treating every individual, as it 
does, on the plane of sovereignty, never forgetting his rights and 
dignities, giving him his own place, and keeping others out of 
it, making it easy by custom of the multitude to render unto 
Csesar, regarding always, as it will be found to do, the sensitive- 
ness of the most sensitive, destroying the agony of bashfulness, 
controlling the insolence of audacity, repressing the rapacity of 
selfishness, and maintaining the authority of the legitimate, has 
something to do with morality, and is an expression of the best 
that civilization has } r et done. This is what a writer in " Har- 
per's Bazar " has most ably said, in a paper that appeared in its 
columns last winter. 

Not alone in America is this subject now being agitated, for 
since the days of the " Spectator," never has there been a time 
when the most distinguished writers of the day have so turned 
their attention to the importance of good manners, involving the 
observance of social laws. Everything that pertains to good 
breeding and to mental and moral culture, ought to be of interest 
to all who instruct the young, whether parents or teachers. 
Emerson says a circle of men, perfectly wellbred, would be a 
company of sensible persons, in which every man's native man- 
ner and character appeared. This assertion implies that mere 
training will not of itself alone make the manners good, that they 
are rather the kindly fruit of refined natures and of culture in 
past generations. But, even admitting this, do not coarse na- 
tures, and such as do not possess high transmitted qualities, need 
all the more that training, without which they would turn so- 
ciety into a Bedlam, and make life unendurable to refined minds 



XX11 INTRODUCTORY. 

and sensitive organizations ? Buskin says a gentleman's first 
characteristic is that fineness of structure in the body which 
renders it capable of the most delicate sensation, and of that 
structure in the mind which renders it capable of the most deli- 
cate sympathies. One may say, simply, fineness of nature. And 
yet, as has already been said, such natures even are not endowed 
at birth with a knowledge of the forms which have been created 
for the purpose of taking away the disagreeabilities which result 
from people of opposite character and training meeting in social 
life. Calvert says ladyhood is an emanation from the heart sub- 
tilized by culture. Here we have the two requisites for the high- 
est breeding — transmitted qualities and the culture of good train- 
ing. "Of the higher type of ladyhood," continues Calvert, "may 
always be said what Steele said of Lady Elizabeth Hastings, 
'that unaffected freedom and conscious innocence gave her the 
attendance of the graces in all her actions. ' At its highest, lady- 
hood implies a spirituality made manifest in poetic grace. From 
the lady there exhales a subtle magnetism. Unconsciously she 
encircles herself with an atmosphere of unruffled strength, which, 
to those who come into it, gives confidence and repose. Within 
her influence the diffident grow self-possessed, the impudent are 
checked, the inconsiderate admonished ; even the rude are con- 
strained to be mannerly, and the refined are perfected ; all spelled 
unawares by the charm of the flexible dignity, the commanding 
gentleness, the thorough womanliness of her look, speech, and 
demeanor. A sway is this, purely spiritual. Every sway, every 
legitimate, every enduring sway is spiritual ; a regnancy of light 
over obscurity, of right over brutality. The only real gains we 
ever make are spiritual gains — a further subjection of the gross 
to the incorporeal, of body to soul, of the animal to the human. 
The finest, the most characteristic acts of a lady, involve a spir- 
itual ascension, a growing out of herself. In her being and bear- 
ing, patience, generosity, benignity, are the graces that give shape 
to the virtues of truthfulness." 

Here we have the test of true ladyhood. Were tomes upon 
tomes written upon the subject, what more, what better could 
be said ? Let the young remember that whenever they find them- 
selves in the company of those who do not make them feel at 
ease, they are in the society of pretenders, and not in the com- 
pany of true gentlewomen and true gentlemen. As in literature, 
talent alone can never make a good critic, inasmuch as genius is 



INTRODUCTORY. XXlll 

needed to sympathize with genius, so wellbred men and women 
can only feel at home in the society of the wellbred. In anything 
less they are aliens and strangers. 

Has it ever occurred to any one to picture what society might 
be, if all who moved in it were gentlemen and gentlewomen — 
what the earth might be made, if all its inhabitants were kind- 
hearted — if, instead of contending with the faults of our fellows, 
we were each to wage war against our own faults ? There is no 
one living who does not need to watch constantly against the 
evil from within, as well as from without, for, as has been truly 
said, "a man's greatest foe dwells in his own heart." The les- 
sons of life are never learned until life is ended ; the victory over 
self is never gained until the mortal becomes immortal. This is 
why Life is called a school, and Sin and Sorrow its teachers. It 
is a great work, that of self-improvement, self-culture. 

Miss Shirreff, writing of the higher education of women, says : 
"So long as essentials are never lost sight of, let us add as many 
more graces of high culture as time, or means, or occasion may 
permit. " It is with these graces of high culture that we now have 
to deal in the following pages ; which pages, like those that pre- 
cede them, are but little more than a compilation from the various 
authors whose names will be found at the close of this work. 
Ruskin tells us, "All men who have sense and feeling are being 
continually helped ; they are taught by every person whom they 
meet, and enriched by everything that falls in their way. The 
greatest is he who has been oftenest aided ; and if the attain- 
ments of all human minds could be traced to their real sources, 
it would be found that the world had been laid most under 
contribution by the men of most original power, and that every 
day of their existence deepened their debt to their race, while it 
enlarged their gifts to it. The labor devoted to trace the origin 
of any thought, or any invention, will usually issue in the blank 
conclusion that there is nothing new under the sun ; }^et nothing 
that is truly great can ever be altogether borrowed ; and he is 
commonly the wisest, and is always the happiest, who receives 
simply, and without envious question, whatever good is offered 
him, with thanks to its immediate giver." 

Newport. 



Sensible Etiquette 



OF THE BEST SOCIETY, 



CUSTOMS, MANNERS AND MORALS, AND 
HOME CULTURE. 



CHAPTER I. 

LETTERS — NOTES — INVITATIONS — ACCEPTANCES— REGRETS — 
OPERA-BOXES — EXCEPTIONS TO GENERAL RULES— SOCI- 
ETY— SOLITUDE — CHARACTER. 

" No talent among men hath more scholars and fewer masters." 

" In everything that is done, no matter how trivial, there is a right 
and a wrong way of doing it. The writing of a note or letter, the 
wording of a regret, the prompt or the delayed answering of an in- 
vitation, the manner of a salutation, the neglect of a required atten- 
tion, all betray to the well-bred the degree or the absence of good 
breeding." — From the French of Midler. 

Respect for one's self, as well as respect for others, re- 
quires that no letter should ever be carelessly written, 
much less a note. Blots of ink, erasures, and stains on the 
paper are equally inadmissible. The handwriting should 
be divested of all nourishes, the rules of punctuation should 
be strictly regarded, and no capital letters used where they 
are not required. Any abbreviations of name, rank, or 
title are considered rude beyond those sanctioned by cus- 
tom, nor should any abbreviations of words be indulged 

(13) 



14 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

in, or underlining of words intended to be emphatic. All 
amounts of money or other numbers should be written, re- 
serving the use of numeral figures for dates only. It is 
good form to have the direction of the writer printed in 
simple characters at the top. All business letters should 
bear the direction and the date. Upon friendly notes 
nothing more than the day of the week, with the street 
and the number, is absolutely necessary. 

No attention should ever be paid to anonymous letters. 
The writers of such stamp themselves as ignoble and cow- 
ardly; and cowards never hesitate to say or write what> is 
not true when it suits their purpose. All statements made 
in such letters should be regarded as false and inspired by 
envy ; for there are no anonymous letter- writers who are 
not both cowardly and envious. Such letters should be 
consigned to the flames, for they are beneath notice. 

White note-paper and envelopes are in better taste than 
colored. In families where arms are used it should be re- 
membered that unmarried ladies have not the right to use 
crests or coats of arms, although some do so who cannot 
plead ignorance as an excuse. Americans have the reputa- 
tion of sneering at titles, yet of imitating the weaknesses and 
infringing upon the rights of those who bear them. It 
must be confessed that even in a republic the temptation 
to use armorial bearings is very strong, and the desire very 
natural, where families possess the undoubted right : as, 
when they have been handed down from father to son for 
many generations, after having been brought from the 
mother-country either on old silver or old seals or in old 
Bibles, or emblazoned with casque and mantling on vellum 
and framed, as are frequently seen in our Colonial families. 
But in this brazen age anything can be bought with money, 
and coats of arms are often used at complete variance with 
personal history and in violation of all precedent. It is 



ARMS AND CRESTS. 15 

considered a misdemeanor, and punished as such, to in- 
fringe on a merchant's mark, and yet the marks of nobility 
are continually appropriated by ignorant and aspiring peo- 
ple who only bear the name of the family, and cannot 
trace the faintest line of their descent. The oldest Euro- 
pean families prefer to use their arms without quarterings. 
A story is told of two gentlemen passing along the Rue de 
la Paix in Paris, who stopped to look in the attractive 
window of a china establishment. " Jupiter !" exclaimed 
one, , look at the arms on that china ! — no end of quarter- 
ings ! Let us stop in and see what noble duke it belongs 
to." Great was their astonishment to learn that it had 
been ordered, by an American family. 

Nothing is more vulgar than pretence, and those who 
use arms or crests should have them printed as simply as 
possible. Married ladies use the arms of their husbands' 
family, unmarried ones the quarterings of their fathers' and 
mothers' arms on a lozenge. In a republic monograms 
are considered by many in better taste than crests or coats 
of arms. Fashion is always changing the size and the shape 
of note-paper and envelopes, but the quality never alters. 
Nothing looks poorer or more untidy than thin paper, and 
envelopes which do not conceal the waiting. No letters 
should ever be crossed, even among relations or intimate 
friends. Some literary people affect carelessness in writing, 
thinking it rather Byronic to do so, but if they realized 
the effect produced by a slovenly letter upon the mind of 
the recipient they would never repeat the offence. In no 
way is one's culture sooner judged of than by his manner of 
writing a note or a letter Long letters are excusable only 
when written to relatives or old friends. In writing formal 
letters the stilted style of past generations has been univer- 
sally dropped. The prevailing idea amongst sensible 
people of the present day is that familiarity and ceremony 



18 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

are equally far removed from politeness and good tasto, 
and should be banished from society. The writing of 
notes in the third person, which was the custom formerly 
among people who knew each other but slightly, is now 
generally confined to notes of invitation, excepting where 
old-school customs are still admired and clung to. 

Whenever the note exceeds the few admissible lines for 
the third person, it is better, even when writing to strangers, 
to write in the first person. The French have the follow- 
ing rule : " In manuscript letters never use the third per- 
son excepting when writing to your dressmakers and 
tailors." Certainly no well-educated lady or gentleman 
would be guilty of the rudeness of replying to a note, from 
a friend and equal, written in the first person, bj 7 one writ- 
ten in the third, unless from thoughtlessness. 

Persons have been known in fits of abstraction to sign 
their names to notes written in the third person. One 
would hope that the receiver would be sufficiently chari- 
table not to attribute such a mistake to ignorance, knowing 
how frequently it is the case that persons who write much 
are surrounded by members of their family, who keep up a 
flow of conversation, often addressing remarks to them 
which require an answer. It would not be surprising 
should a person so situated change from the third to the 
first person before her note was finished, or even sign her 
name to one which she had written in the third person. 
But such mistakes should be carefully guarded against, as 
nothing could bear stronger circumstantial evidence of 
ignorance. When a letter is upon business, commencing 
" Sir " or " Dear Sir," it is customary to place the name of 
the person addressed at the close, in the left-hand corner. 

When written in the third person the name is omitted 
of course; also in all letters commencing with the name of 
the person to whom you are writing, as " My dear Mrs. 



LETTERS AND NOTES. 17 

Jones." The name should not then be repeated in the left- 
hand corner as when one commences, " Dear Madam," or 
"Sir." It is astonishing to see how often this rale is vio- 
lated by persons professing the greatest punctiliousness in 
observing the correct forms and ceremonies of social inter- 
course. 

The custom of leaving a blank margin on the left-hand 
side of each page is now looked upon as obsolete, excepting 
in legal documents. No notes should be commenced very 
high or very low on the page, but should be nearer the top 
than the middle of the sheet. 

In addressing a clergyman it is customary to commence 
" Reverend Sir " or " Dear Sir." It is no longer custom- 
ary to write " B.A." or " M.A." after his name. " Rev. 
Henry Bell," is the correct form ; where the first name is 
not known, "Rev. Bell." 

Doctors of divinity and of medicine are thus distin- 
guished : "To the Rev. James Haw, D.D.," or "Rev. 
Dr. Haw ;" " To J. G. Latham, Esq., M.D.," " Doctor 
Latham," or "Dr. Latham." 

Foreign ministers are addressed as " His Excellency " 
and "Honorable." (See Westlake's Letters, Notes, and 
Cards — a valuable book for proper use of titles.) 

In writing to servants it is customary to begin thus : 
" To Ellen Weller : Mrs. Jones wishes to have her house 
in readiness on the 14th inst.," etc., etc. To trades-people 
the third person is used. If necessary to write in the first 
person, one commences, " Sir," and signs " Yours truly," 
giving the initials only, as " J. E. Jones," not " Julia E. 
Jones." 

There is a diversity of opinion as to the degrees of for- 
mality in commencing and signing notes and letters. Both 
in England and New England the scale is as follows: 
"Madam," "Dear Madam," "My dear Madam;" "Dear 

2 



18 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Mrs. Jones/' " My dear Mrs. Jones/' " My dear Friend." 
In closing a note the degrees are implied as follows : 
" Truly yours " or " Yours truly/' " Very truly yours/' 
" Sincerely yours/' " Cordially yours/' " Faithfully 
yours/' " Affectionately yours." 

There are words enough in use to express every grade 
of feeling, and they should be carefully selected for the pur- 
pose ; as the conclusion of a letter or a note makes an im- 
pression upon the person reading it. To aged persons 
" With great respect, yours sincerely/' recommends itself 
as being less familiar than the other forms. A very rude 
ending is " Yours, etc." 

You do not sign " Yours truly " or " Truly yours " to 
any one whom you know sufficiently well to commence 
your note with " My dear Mrs. ;" this form being re- 
served for writing to strangers and for business letters. 
" Believe me, with kind regards, sincerely yours," is one 
of the stereotyped modes considered a good form in closing 
a letter to a friend. It is a thing of the past to commence 
letters with " Sir" or " Madam " when writing io persons 
in your own class of circles. This form is reserved for per- 
sons of superior or inferior station as denoting in both no 
familiarity. While, in replying to a letter from a stranger 
so commenced, it would be extremely civil, in a lady, to 
begin with "Dear Sir" or " Dear Madam," it would be 
very uncivil to commence a letter with "Sir" or 
"Madam" in answering one commencing with "Dear 
Sir" or " Dear Madam." Foreigners are struck with the 
formalities that Americans sanction. A lady, writing to 
another lady of her own station, although she may never 
have met her, writes " Dear Mrs. Blank," signing herself 
"Yours truly." After she has become acquainted with 
her, she changes to " My dear Mrs. Blank," and signs her- 
self "Yours sincerely," or, perhaps, "With kindest re- 



LETTERS AND NOTES. 19 

gards, believe me cordially yours," giving her Christian 
name in full, as for example, " Lucy M. Vaughan," and 
not " L. M. Vaughan." 

It is everywhere looked upon as a vulgarity when a mar- 
ried lady signs herself with the " Mrs." before her name, 
or a single lady with the " Miss." In writing to strangers 
who do not know whether to address you as " Mrs." or 
" Miss," the address should be given in full, after signing 
your letter; as, " Mrs. John Vaughan," followed by the. 
direction: or, if unmarried, the "Miss" should be placed 
in brackets, at a short distance preceding the signature. 

Never write of your children as " Miss Nellie " or " Mas- 
ter Edward." Reserve the "Miss" or " Master" for use 
in speaking or writing to inferiors. 

To recapitulate, - i - 

In writing to strangers, one is at liberty to use the third 
person, or to commence with "Sir" or "Madam," as pre- 
ferred. If the letter is for any one of whom the writer has 
some knowledge, " Dear Sir " or " Dear Madam " is con- 
sidered more courteous. If the persons have speaking ac- 
quaintance, " Dear Mr. Jones " or " Dear Mrs. Jones " is 
the correct form. If visits have been exchanged, or the 
persons writing and written to are well acquainted, " My 
dear Mrs. Jones " or " My dear Mr. Jones." 

Do not sign " Yours truly " to a friend. Reserve this 
form for business letters, and in writing to strangers. 
Never sign your name prefixed with " Mrs.," or " Miss," 
or "Mr." 

Only the letters of unmarried ladies and widows are ad- 
dressed with their baptismal names. All letters of mar- 
ried women should bear their husbands' names, as " Mrs. 
JohnSmith." The French do not use "Cher" or "Chere" 
in commencing letters, unless where there is great inti- 
macy, but only "Monsieur," "Madame," or "Mademoi- 



20 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

selle ;" which customs Americans abroad would do well to 
remember when writing in the French language. Writing 
in English, our own forms can be observed, even though 
writing to foreigners. 

Foreigners of distinction do not use their titles in signing 
notes or letters to their friends ; nor is it ever permissible 
for Americans to prefix " Honorable " or any other title to 
their own names. 

In writing to your inferiors use as few words as possible, 
that your letter may not be presumed upon from any seem- 
ing familiarity. As men are not as chivalric in these days 
as in former times, it would be well to read over every 
letter before sending it, with a view to discovering whether 
it is worded as it ought to be should it fall into other hands 
than those for whom it was written. A lady once addressed 
a letter to a man with whom she had but slight acquaint- 
ance, stating with perfect fairness the unprincipled con- 
duct of some one in his employ which she thought it was 
for his interest to know and to condemn. It never seemed 
to have crossed her mind that the subordinate would see 
her letter; but it was shown to him, and he wrote an illit- 
erate and most insolent note- in reply, stating in it that he 
had kept a copy of the note which she had written to his 
employer. 

Such an experience could not often occur, it is true, for 
there are few men to be found who would show a lady's 
letter to the person of whom she had complained in terms 
of indignation suitable to the grossness of his offence, but 
that it did once occur should serve as a warning to all 
writers of letters not to allow any epistle to go out of their 
hands which they would not be willing to have read by 
others than the one addressed. Only in the cultivated 
must we look for that thorough refinement which acts like 
an instinct in such matters. 



LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION. 21 

Another thing in which great care should be exercised by 
those who have a voluminous correspondence ("clashing off" 
a dozen letters at a time), is that each be at once inclosed in 
its own envelope. Absent-minded and careless persons fre- 
quently create great annoyance by inclosing their letters 
wrongly. A lady going to a strange city had some letters of 
introduction sent by post, that the parties to whom they were 
to be sent might call upon her during her stay, which was to 
be short, as she was a musical celebrity whose time was not 
entirely at her own disposal. The letters were written and 
sent, but unfortunately were so carelessly changed about in 
putting them in their envelopes, as to deprive those to whom 
they were addressed of the pleasure it would have been to 
them to make the acquaintance of the lady. Punch gives 
the following experience, which is still more to the point : 
Damon — " Hullo, Pythias ; what's the matter ?" Pythias — 
"O, my dear fellow, I've tut-t-t-t-t (objurgations), I've 
been writing to my tailor to give me another inch and a 
half in the waistband, and composed a valentine to my 
adored Anna, and — oh ! I've put 'em into the wrong en- 
velopes, and they're posted !" 

Letters of introduction should be brief and carefully 
worded. State in full the name of the person, and the city 
or town he is from, intimating the mutual pleasure that you 
feel the acquaintance will confer; adding as few remarks as 
possible concerning the one introduced. Persons are some- 
times deterred from delivering letters of introduction which 
seem to them to be undeservedly complimentary. Letters of 
introduction are left unsealed, to be closed before delivery by 
the one introduced, who sends it with his card and direction, 
and waits until this formality is returned by a call, or by 
cards with an invitation. When a gentleman delivers such a 
letter to a lady, he is at liberty to call, sending up his card 
to ascertain whether she will receive him then, or appoint 



22 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

another hour that will be more convenient. The same rule is 
to be observed by those whose stay in a city is short. A let- 
ter of introduction should not, as a general rule, be given, 
unless the person writing it is well acquainted with the one 
whom he introduces and the one to whom he writes. If 
the persons who receive such letters are really well bred, 
nothing but an accident will prevent you from hearing 
within twenty-four hours from them ; for as La Fontaine 
says, a letter of introduction is like a draft, it must be 
cashed at sight. The one receiving it, either invites you 
to dine enfamille, or to meet others, or at least asks you to 
drive with him, or visit some place of amusement. Too 
great caution, however, cannot be exercised in giving a 
letter which makes such demands upon an acquaintance. 

A gentleman in Boston once wrote to a friend in New 
York, introducing a foreigner of whom he knew nothing 
further than that he had met him at a dinner party at the 
house of a wealthy Bostonian, and had found him an agree- 
able and amusing table companion, musical, speaking sev- 
eral languages, and apparently highly cultivated. The 
New Yorker introduced him to his mother and sisters, en- 
tertained him, took him to his club, exerted himself to pro- 
cure invitations for him, and succeeded in launching him 
upon the tide of New York society. One day, after lunch- 
ing with his new friend at a well-known restaurant, they 
left together ; but upon returning alone in the course of the 
day to give some order, the New Yorker was accosted with 
the following question by one of the clerks : " I saw Yille- 
noy in here with you this morning, sir. In what capacity 
does he serve you?" a Villenoy !" exclaimed the gentle- 
man, " Of whom are you speaking ? I know no one by 
the name of Villenoy." "I beg your pardon, sir; I 
thought there was some mistake when I saw you break- 
fasting together this morning." " There is no mistake 



LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION. 23 

upon my part," replied the gentleman. "My friend, Mr. 
Hausenkroft, took luncheon with me. You have made 
the mistake, whatever it is." 

" AVell, you see, sir, I could not be mistaken. I was 

clerk at the Hotel at the time he was cook there. 

When he left, some silver disappeared ; but although he 
was followed and arrested, they couldn't prove anything 
against him. He was too sharp for that, sir. I thought 
he had gone back to Germany, when suddenly he turns up 
here. If you' want proof of what I say, ask him to go with 
you to the Hotel, and you will get it." 

"I shall most certainly take my friend to that hotel in 
order that he may give the lie to such slanders," the gen- 
tleman answered promptly. " There may be some strong 
resemblance, but Mr. Hausenkroft is beyond suspicion." 

An hour later found him at his friend's lodging house, 
where the awkward accusation was revealed with as much 
consideration as possible, and the foreigner was requested 
to accompany his friend and clear up matters at once. 
He agreed to do so, with the utmost coolness, said he had 
heard of such cases before ; in fact, had himself been taken 
for another person, and treated the grave charge so lightly 
as quite to reassure his friend, who had feared that he 
might give offence, no matter how delicately he went to 
work in the matter. The New York gentleman left, 
agreeing to return the following morning, when they were 
to proceed to the hotel together. But when he did return, 
not a vestige of Hausenkroft, alias Villenoy, was to be 
found, nor were any of his effects left in his lodgings. All 
had disappeared together in some mysterious way; and 
nothing left behind but unpaid bills, which the friend pre- 
ferred to pay, as he had introduced him to his trades- 
people, unfortunately, as well as in society. 

In writing the superscription of foreign letters the word 



24 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

"Monsieur" or "Madam" is not repeated as formerly, 
viz. : "A Monsieur, Monsieur B." but simply " Monsieur 
_B." The custom is obsolete. In addressing notes of invi- 
tation to foreigners bearing titles, if your republican sym- 
pathies are too strong to permit you to make -use of the 
titles, you are at liberty to write " Mr. and Mrs." or " Mon- 
sieur et Madame;" but if you use the title for the husband 
you must also use it for the wife. You cannot write " Mar- 
quis and Madame de Villiers," or " Count and Madame 
de Launy." 

But even those who, on the ground of republican preju- 
dices, object to titles, should not forget what civility re- 
quires in their intercourse with titled foreigners, unless 
they are willing to be classed in the category with those, 
of whom Montaigne affirms, that if they cannot attain to 
rank or greatness themselves, they take their revenge by 
railing at it in others. 

An Englishman, well known as a large landed proprie- 
tor in one of the southern counties of England, who lost no 
opportunity of asserting his hostility to titles to his baronet 
neighbor (a man whose ancestral name was in " Domesday 
Book "), at last had a baronetcy conferred upon him for 
distinguished legal services. Announcing this fact to his 
friend, he said, " My hostility against titles is in no way 
diminished, but I have decided to accept the baronetcy on 
my son's account, as he has not the same prejudices that I 
entertain." His railing ceased thereafter. 

As has been said, letters should never be crossed, even 
among relatives. It is very trying to the patience to re- 
ceive a crossed letter, or one written on too thin a sheet ; 
and one should be as careful with relatives as with 
strangers, to avoid all trials of patience. Formality be- 
tween friends and relatives is considered "bad form." 
One begins letters, to all with whom one is connected, by 



NOTES OF INVITATION. 25 

using the baptismal name, as " My dear Lucy," or, " Dear 
Lucy." In " old-school " times, it was customary, espe- 
cially among the descendants of the Puritans, for heads of 
families to address their married children, in speaking to 
them, or of them, as " Mr." and " Mrs." The oldest families 
in Europe address each other by their Christian names 
through almost endless removes. Everywhere, old fami- 
lies are very clannish, counting cousins to the twentieth re- 
move, where all the members are men and women of cul- 
ture. If wanting in education and refinement, one's rela- 
tions may become more disagreeable than other people's 
uncongenial relations. Owing to differences in education 
and training, and to frequent changes of fortune, one's 
poorest relatives are often more congenial than one's weal- 
thiest. Although it should be the pride as well as the 
duty of every family to remain as united as is possible, it 
is much better when want of congeniality makes it impos- 
sible for relatives to meet without clashing, or offending 
each other's sensibilities, to avoid all unnecessary inter- 
course. To insure one's own best development, one must 
have the companionship of those whose influence is good. 

The ceremonial of invitations is much changed of late 
years. 

Notes of invitation for evening parties are issued in the 
name of the lady of the house, as, 

" Mrs. John Smith requests the pleasure of Mr. and Mrs. Dudley* 
Jones's company on Monday evening, March 6th, from nine to twelve 
o'clock." 

The reply, if an acceptance, may be as follows : 

" Mr. and Mrs. Dudley Jones have much pleasure in accepting Mrs. 
John Smith's kind invitation for Monday evening, the 6th inst." 

* Care must be had never to separate the Mr. and Mrs. from the 
name, and the name itself must he written on one line. 



26 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Or, if a regret, 

"Mr. and Mrs. Dudley Jones regret that a previous engagement, 
to dine with Mrs. Blank, deprives them of the pleasure of accepting 
Mrs. John Smith's kind invitation for Monday evening, March 6th." 

When the invitation is for a ball, the " At Home " form 
is now often adopted, with "Dancing" in one corner; 
though many still use the more formal invitation, reserving 
the "At Home" for receptions. For balls, the hours are 
not limited, as at receptions. 

The custom of the best society everywhere, which makes 
it binding to let nothing prevent the acceptance of a first 
invitation by those who customarily accept, is so little 
understood in some American circles that ladies have been 
heard to say, " Although I was dying to go, I' sent a re- 
gret, as you know it would never do to seem eager to ac- 
cept." Can this also- be the reason why some are so dila- 
tory in sending their acceptances? True hospitality never 
dreams of accrediting the prompt fulfilment of duties to 
any other eagerness than that which self-respect and a 
sense of honor should require of all. Those who entertain 
frequently know too well the greater convenience of receiv- 
ing prompt answers ever to be guilty of withholding them ; 
and those who do not entertain at all ought to be even 
more particular, if possible, in promptly replying. No 
matter what the invitation, it is always more civil to send 
an immediate regret when you know that you cannot go; 
and just as binding is it, where an acceptance has been sent, 
to send the required note of regret before the entertainment, 
when you find that you cannot be present. 

Oftentimes, persons are prevented from sending a note 
of explanation after having accepted an invitation, when 
they find themselves at the last moment unable to go, from 
the idea that they are of too little importance to be missed. 
In the same way, persons are often careless in writing their 



NOTES OF REGRET. 27 

notes of regret when a first invitation is received, omitting 
to state the reason. This feeling of humility should never 
be allowed to prevent the fulfilment of a courtesy, which 
is an obligation equally binding upon all. In illustration 
of the importance of sending a proper regret, though even 
at the last moment, an incident may be given which came 
under the compiler's notice many years since. A lady who 
gave a ball for a nobleman of a distinguished historical 
family, that had been sent by his king to this country on 
a mission, asked, at his solicitation, an American girl whom 
he had met in Washington, and whom he found particularly 
charming. The young lady, who never went to balls, sent 
an acceptance, and when the evening came, the foreigner 
waited for her arrival to ask her for the cotillion, but she 
did not appear. His annoyance was not lessened by learning 
afterwards, through a common friend, that she had accepted 
because she thought it was more civil than to send a regret, 
although she knew that she could not go, and that she had 
considered herself of too little importance to write the re- 
quired note of explanation when the evening came. The 
hostess was the principal sufferer in this case, as hours of 
her time were taken up in convincing the foreigner that 
no rudeness was intended. 

Those persons who have lived in a society where all its 
members alike comprehend and perform their duties, feel 
great aversion to mingling in circles where such differences 
of opinion render one liable to repeated misunderstandings 
and to annoying experiences. 

Women who endeavor to shape their course upon Chris- 
tian principles should remember that the very young may 
err from this same humility, and should not, therefore, set 
down their remissnesses to self-conceit or want of respect 
for their superiors, where a charitable construction can be 
put upon their shortcomings. 



28 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Of a very different nature are the evil words or deeds, 
rendered in return for benefits conferred, which admit of 
no cloak of charity. These need no illustration. Most 
heinous among them are such as are sown broadcast to in- 
jure the character; representations of rudeness, where no 
rudeness has been shown, of superciliousness, where no 
superciliousness has been felt, slurs cast upon families, 
where no cause has existed, save in the imagination of the 
talebearer. Despicable indeed is that character that can 
take any delight in exposing the weaknesses of a relative, 
a friend, or a benefactor ; how much more despicable is the 
person who invents them where they do not exist, who is 
capable of representing one from whom he has received 
nothing but kindness as a being to be classed in conduct 
with snobs, pretentious people, and silly upstarts. Whit- 
tier says : 

"Who gives and hides the giving hand, 
Nor counts on favors, fame or praise, 
Shall find his smallest gift outweighs 

The burden of the sea and land. 



"Who gives to whom hath nought been given, 
His gift in need, though small indeed, 
As is the grass-blade's wind-blown seed, 

Is large as earth and rich as heaven. 



Forget it not, O man, to whom 

A gift shall fall, while yet on earth ; 
Yes, even to thy seven-fold birth 

Kecall it in the lives to come. 



"Who broods above a wrong in thought 
Sins much ; but greater sin is his 
Who, fed and clothed with kindnesses, 

Shall count the holy alms as nought. 



FORMS OF EXPRESSION. 29 

Who dares to curse the hands that bless 

Shall know of sin the deadliest cost ; 

The patience of the heaven is lost 
Beholding man's unthankfulness. 

For he who breaks all laws may still 

In Sivam's mercy be forgiven ; 

But none can save in earth or heaven 
The wretch who answers good with ill. 



Let the man or the woman who answers good with ill by 
circulating inventions or misrepresentations of his bene- 
factors remember that they are sure to fall upon the ears of 
some true friend (among the many who listen) able to turn 
the reproach upon the shoulders where it ought to rest. 
From this long digression we turn to the form of accept- 
ances and regrets. 

The expression "presents compliments " has been dis- 
carded for quite a number of years by all who are not 
admirers of the old-school forms and ceremonies. It is 
as obsolete as the word " genteel ;" or as the word polite, 
which was formerly so much used by Americans in their 
acceptances and regrets, the English form of "kind" or 
"very kind," being now generally substituted for "polite." 

"lean give you no reason," says an English writer, 
"why these poor words * polite/ 'present compliments/ 
and 'genteel/ are thought so vulgar ; but it is quite certain 
that they mark the class to which you belong. They are 
tabooed or excluded in good society." 

The severest simplicity is consistent with the truest re- 
finement and the greatest elegance. The use of the words 
"present compliments" and "your polite invitation" 
causes the style of the note to appear stilted and antiquated 
to modern ideas. Even when the word " polite " was more 
used than it is now, there were many who rebelled at it, 



30 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

on account of its seeming to imply that the person inviting 
could have written an invitation that was not polite. 

No abbreviation of names is allowable in invitations or 
in addresses, though initials may be used. Care must be 
taken to write the full name upon one line, and not Mr. 
and Mrs. on one line and the name on the next. In dates 
numerals are generally preferred. This often depends on 
the space, however. The handwriting varies so much in 
individuals that one needs practice to scatter the words, or 
condense them, in order to write invitations, acceptances, 
or regrets, as they should be written. Invitations for balls 
and large dinner parties are frequently engraved. 

Stationers are always able to show specimens. The u At 
Home" card admits of the name of the invited person 
being written above ; but this is not as much done with us 
as in England. There the stationers always keep on hand 
a plain card with the words 



engraved in the centre, which is filled up by those invit- 
ing, as they choose. Our stationers might easily introduce 
these cards here, which would be a great convenience to 
those who entertain frequently, and do not care to use the 
more formal card with the invitation engraved upon it. 

Invitations of a formal description can be sent out from 
ten days to two weeks before the party is to take place. In 
any case a notice of not less than a week is expected for 
such invitations. They should be written or engraved on 
small note-paper or large cards, with the envelopes to 
match, and no colors used in the monogram or arms. 

It is not considered good form to inclose one card of in- 
vitation to several persons, addressing them as Messrs. 

or as Mrs. Blank and family. But invitations are some- 
times sent in this way by those who care little for rules 



ACCEPTANCES AND REGRETS. 31 

which do not involve a violation of the principle upon 
which all rules of good breeding are based, viz., a due re- 
gard for the feelings of others. A scarcity of cards, or 
haste in sending out invitations being the cause, both of 
which should be avoided where it is possible. Those who 
have been trained to make a difference between "reason- 
able and unreasonable points of etiquette," often set con- 
ventionalities at defiance with a boldness that startles those 
who hold the idea that the etiquette of polite life is written 
in a despotic code, and that those who obey any of it are 
not excused from obeying the whole. 

As an example of a rule that is binding upon all per- 
sons, and which has no exceptions, is the one which re- 
quires that should anything occur at the last moment to 
prevent the attendance of a person who has accepted an 
invitation, a regret shall be immediately sent. 

This rule cannot be too strictly observed, for there should 
be but one opinion regarding the rudeness of sending an 
acceptance, and of staying away without apologizing for so 
doing. Although the host and hostess may not miss any 
of their expected guests on the evening of their entertain- 
ment, rest assured they will not fail, in going over their list 
of acceptances and regrets afterwards, to miss those who 
accepted and did not arrive. We have heard that there 
are many persons who hold the opinion of the young lady, 
that it is more civil to send an acceptance than to send a 
regret, when they know they will not be able to be present. 
This seems absurdly incredible to those who know what 
civility requires. Self-respect requires the observance of 
certain forms of courtesy quite as much as respect for others, 
and this is a form that is strictly observed in the best so- 
ciety. The Marchioness de Lambert said, in a tract that 
she wrote for her sou : " A man's happiness depends on his 
manners and his conduct, and a disregard of observances 



34 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

If accepted, the answer is as follows : 

" Mr. and Mrs. Mortimer Dudley accept with pleasure Mr. and 
Mrs. Ernest Smith's kind invitation to dine with them on Tuesda}^, 
the 18th inst , at seven o'clock.'' 

Another grammatical error, almost as frequently made 
as the "will accept" for "accepts," is in using the words 
"to dinner" instead of" for dinner," or, "to dine." 

" To dinner" is neither grammatical nor euphonious, yet 
it is a combination often used by persons who certainly 
must know better, and is found in some of the best books 
on etiquette. 

All answers to invitations are addressed to the lady who 
invites; not to "Mr. and Mrs. Blank." 

Dinner, opera, and theatre-party invitations are an- 
swered as soon as received, and unequivocally accepted or 
declined. 

It is quite as important to answer invitations to opera 
and theatre-parties promptly, as it is to answer dinner in- 
vitations immediately after receiving them. The one who 
makes up the party wishes to fill the seat at once. A gen- 
tleman taking a proscenium box, which holds eight or ten 
persons, seated comfortably, is sometimes incommoded by 
the thoughtlessness of an eleventh, who, instead of drop- 
ping in for the ten minutes' call permissible between the 
acts, comes to remain during an entire act, occupying the 
seat of one of those who were invited for the evening. 

The length of the stay makes no difference whatever in 
those boxes, where the invited are packed as sardines are, 
more with reference to making a spectacle for the house 
than for the comfort of the invited. Gentlemen should 
discriminate between the two, and time their calls accord- 
ingly. 

" So, you sent a gentleman out of your box who came 



FORMS OF REGRETS. 35 

-when be was not invited, telling him there was no room 
for him," said one friend to another. 

" You know me too well to believe such an invention, 
but you need not deny it, as those persons who could think 
me capable of such a rudeness, would also believe me ca- 
pable of telling a falsehood to cover it," was the answer. 

An invitation to a lady's opera-box, or theatre-party, 
where there has been no entertainment preceding or after, 
such as a dinner or a supper, does not require any " after- 
call," unless it is a first invitation ; as thanks for the atten- 
tion can be given when taking leave of the lady in her box, 
or when seeing her to her carriage, as the case may be. 

To return to the form of regrets, we find the following 
rule in " London Etiquette :" " All regrets from persons 
who are not able to accept invitations should contain a rea- 
son for regretting." This rule is as strictly observed in 
our best society as it is abroad, and is considered especially 
binding in answering a first invitation. It is said that 
outside of diplomatic circles there are no ladies more punc- 
tilious in the observance of traditionary rules than are 
some ladies in the exclusive circles of New York, Philadel- 
phia, and Boston society. 

Persons in mourning regret that a recent bereavement 
prevents them from accepting ; or, if the note-paper has 
the usual black edge that custom ordains, it speaks for it- 
self and needs no other explanation. Those who are going 
to be absent from the city, regret that intended absence 
prevents them from accepting (not " will prevent," should 
be borne in mind, as this is a mistake that is constantly 
made). "A previous engagement" is made the excuse 
when there is an engagement at home, or away from it, 
and when one has no inclination to accept ; which makes it 
quite necessary for those who really regret their inability, 
to mention what their engagement is. 



36 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

A first invitation which has not been accepted should 
not, as a rule, be repeated, until a courtesy of some kind 
has been extended in return, though it be but a kind mes- 
sage, or an informal note, expressing renewed regret. 
Kind hearts are better prompters than rules in such mat- 
ters, and all who love to confer kindnesses on others well 
know how pleasant it is to receive the simplest token of 
appreciation in return. 

A lady, who once received a few sprays of the wild ar- 
butus blossom, left at her door by some unknown friend, 
cannot to this day recall the circumstance without awaken- 
ing memories of the exquisite pleasure which this attention 
gave her ; not only because the arbutus was associated with 
many memories of her girlhood, but because of the kind 
feeling which the bestowed attention manifested, and 
which came to her in moments of depression. The sweet 
breath of the flowers seemed to say : " See ! although the 
hands that once gathered these fragrant blossoms for you 
are cold in death, you are not forgotten. A ministering 
angel has brought them to you just when you needed them 
most." 

In writing a regret, there are circumstances evident to 
every sensitive mind, under which " very kind " is often 
substituted for " kind," and still others when " regret ex- 
tremely " is more courteous than " regret." These need 
no explanation, for there are but few natures not able to 
judge for themselves. 

The following are the forms that are most frequently used : 

" Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Smith are not able to accept the kind invi- 
tation of Mrs. Dudley, owing to the death of a near relative." 

If illness is the cause of a regret : 

" Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Smith regret that they are not able to ac- 
cept Mrs. Dudley's kind invitation, owing to the illness of a member 
of their family." 



PROMPT REPLIES TO INVITATIONS. 37 

Or if absence from home prevents : 

"Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Smith regret (or regret extremely) that 
their intended absence from home deprives them of the pleasure of ac- 
cepting Mrs. Dudley's kind invitation for Friday evening, the 17th 
instant." 

"All invitations should be answered as soon as possible 
after receiving them." It is easy to see why it is that in 
the most exclusive European society this rule -is punctil- 
iously regarded. If invitations were thrown one side, to 
be answered at leisure, as is so frequently done with us, the 
multiplicity of engagements would lead to entire forgetful- 
ness, and to one of the most unpardonable of all rudenesses, 
no notice taken of the invitation. A well-bred London 
man answers all invitations as soon as he reads them ; and 
frequently in his bachelor apartments arranges them in 
turn down either side of his mirror, so that, at a glance 
upon the open pages of each, he sees what his engagements 
are for weeks before him. 

The French have a saying that is applicable to all notes 
of invitation, to the effect that "it is as important to reply 
as promptly to a note requiring an answer as it is to a ques- 
tion asked in speaking." 

Until very recently, the initials H. S. V. P. (Bepondez 
s'il vous plait) have been engraved upon all formal cards, 
but they are less and less frequently seen. To thus ask 
or even remind a lady or gentleman that an invitation 
should be answered, is, to say the least, a faint reproach to 
their breeding. All refined people who are accustomed to 
the best social forms are fully aware that it would be an 
unpardonable negligence to omit replying to an invita- 
tion for a single day. Although it is not intended as an 
insult to an acquaintance's intelligence, it is one, neverthe- 
less, writes the author of that valuable work, " Social Eti- 
quette in New York." 



88 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

An English book on modern etiquette says: "On re- 
ceiving an invitation to an evening party, an 'At Home/ 
or whatever it may happen to be, reply within a day or 
two at latest/' Another work on the same subject, by the 
Right Honorable the Countess of * * * *, says, " Invita- 
tions to a ball should be answered immediately." It is 
well known that some who admit that dinner invitations 
should be- answered the same day, deny the necessity of 
ball invitations being answered promptly. In a case of 
this kind a foreigner who was a bachelor was once referred 
to. He decided against the lady, who advocated prompt 
replies to all invitations, and said that no answers were 
expected in his country. Great was his astonishment upon 
returning home to find that answers were expected, and 
that the bearers of formal invitations waited for the answers. 
When next he met the lady he candidly acknowledged his 
error, and she laughingly told him that as long as he re- 
mained unmarried he would not be very reliable authority 
in such matters. " The Man in the Club Window" made 
mistakes in his sensible book that he would not have made 
had he had a wife or mother to instruct him. 

In accepting a dinner invitation repeat the hour named, 
in order that if any mistake has been made it may be cor- 
rected. Upon one occasion, at a dinner given for some 
distinguished strangers at the house of a gentleman in New- 
port, whose long experience in entertaining rendered it 
almost impossible that he could make a mistake of any 
description, a lady found herself the first to arrive, although 
she had heard the hour designated in her invitation strike 
as she descended from the carriage. Inquiring of a servant, 
she found that she was just one hour too soon. Her car- 
riage was already dismissed, and she had nothing to do but 
to wait. A few moments later she heard the welcome 
sound of wheels rolling over the gravel as a companion in 



PROMPT REPLIES TO INVITATIONS. 39 

misfortune drove up; but the occupant, finding all silent, 
had the forethought to inquire whether any mistake had 
been made in the hour, and learning that there had been, 
drove away. When this gentleman returned, he brought 
with him his invitation, which was clearly worded for the 
hour previous to the one which the host thought he had 
named in all his invitations. Had the above simple rule 
been observed in the replies of the lady and gentleman the 
mistake could have been rectified, and both would have 
been saved the awkwardness of arriving before the hour. 
A host should never wait over fifteen minutes for a tardy 
guest, as by so doing he commits a rudeness towards all 
those who arrive punctually. It is a very good idea to 
note down in all invitation books any inexcusable tardiness 
against the name, in order to avoid repeating dinner invi- 
tations to such delinquents. 

For musical soirees, charades, private theatricals, and for 
opera, theatre, archery, croquet, sailing, and garden parties 
less formal invitations are sent ; but no matter how infor- 
mal the invitation (with the one exception of when a visit- 
ing-card is used), on no account neglect to give immediate 
attention to it; any want of courtesy in this respect is un- 
pardonable. 

It would go far towards facilitating the prompt replies 
to invitations which civility requires, if the plan of sending 
all answers to invitations by post were adopted. In most 
families in America the servants have sufficient to occupy 
them, previous to the appointed evening, without being 
called off every five or ten minutes to receive notes at the 
door, that might just as well have been left all together by 
the postman on his rounds. Those who consider it in 
better form to send such notes by their own servants, 
should ask themselves if something is not due to the known 
wishes of those who entertain ; and we have yet to hear of 



40 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

one host or hostess, who entertains frequently, that does 
not prefer to receive the answers to his or her invitations 
in this sensible manner. In some cities on the Continent, 
the servant delivering dinner and other invitations waits 
for an answer. Failing to find the person invited at home, 
he returns to his mistress with the message that an answer 
will be sent, which accordingly arrives in the course of the 
day. In invitations for continental royal balls, the card 
sometimes bears the following instruction: "En cas oV em- 
pechement on est prie de renvoyer cette carte;" which 
shows that crowned heads even desire answers. An Eng- 
lish lady of distinction was once asked whether it was 
customary in London to repeat invitations to those who 
neglected to manifest their appreciation of the hospitality 
extended to them by the customary mode of calling, or leav- 
ing a card after the entertainment. She replied, " I cannot 
answer for others. I dare say there are houses in London 
where it would make no difference, but I would not pass 
over such a breach of good manners myself, nor do I know 
any lady who I think would." 

A picture in Punch, not long since, illustrated the faith- 
fulness with which this rule is carried out in London. 
One flunkey is complaining to another, who asks him if it 
is the ball that his mistress has just given which has so 
knocked him up. " Not the ball," he answers, " but taking 
in the cards the next day." 

A book published in London, Paris, and New York, 
entitled " Manners of Modern Society," though not en- 
tirely free from errors, is replete with information, and has 
many excellent ideas in it. Upon this subject the writer 
says : " There is something to be said in defence of the 
gentlemen, their days are occupied with other and more 
serious business, their evenings can be given to their friends, 
and so they thus escape the monotony of calling, and yet 



EXCEPTIONS TO GENERAL RULES. 41 

are allowed to enjoy the festive gatherings, provided, of 
course, that their cards have duly represented their owners 
at the houses of their acquaintances." 

Many of the faults in this book, as also in all books upon 
the manners of society, lie in the fact that their writers lay 
down general rules, without mentioning that there are ex- 
ceptions. Others arise from rules having been made to 
meet certain conditions of society that do not exist with us, 
as, for instance, the absurd one, "It is the lady's place to 
bow first to a gentleman/' made solely for English society; 
and then only under certain contingencies, the reasons for 
which are explained in another chapter. 

Efforts made to establish rules here which have been 
adopted to suit other forms of society than those existing 
in America, should not be encouraged. Every social rule 
of any importance whatever will be found, if examined 
into, to hold some reason for its observance, as, for instance, 
the old-fashioned custom of drawing off the right hand glove 
before shaking hands with a lady, which some gentlemen 
still practice. This custom had its origin in feudal times, 
when the pressure of the iron glove would have been pain- 
ful. When any rule is given that will not bear examina- 
tion as to the reason of its existence, one may safely con- 
clude either that its need has gone by, or that it belongs to 
another land than our own. 

There are still many gentlemen who advocate drawing 
off the right-hand glove before shaking hands with any 
one who is ungloved, holding it especially binding that a 
gentleman should not give a gloved hand to a lady that is 
ungloved. In some parts of Europe, a lady, receiving, 
leaves her right hand ungloved, and guests enter the salon 
with the same hand ungloved. 

The contradictory instructions given in all books treat- 
ing upon matters of etiquette, is owing in part to the vary- 



4:2 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

ing customs of various countries, and partly to the fact that 
such books are generally written upon speculation, without 
their authors having been able to test the usefulness of the 
rules by experience, or to judge by observation as to the 
correctness of the information gleaned. 

In illustration of a general rule being given without any 
allusion to exceptions, take that in reference to letters of 
introduction : " Never deliver a letter of introduction in 
person. " Here is the rule ; but if the bearer of a letter of 
introduction is going to make a limited stay in a city, his 
only opportunity of receiving any attention, or even of 
meeting the one to whom the letter is addressed, is to de- 
liver it in person. Again, if the letter introduces a gen- 
tleman to rJ lady, it is certainly much more agreeable for 
both, when the gentleman calls, sending up his letter with 
his card, and waiting to see if the hour he has chosen is a 
convenient one for his being received. 

One of the reasons given by the Countess of ■ 

why no one should deliver a letter of introduction in 
person, in her book, " Mixing in Society " (page 76), is 
as follows : " You compel those to whom you are intro- 
duced to receive you, whether they choose or not. It may 
be that they are sufficiently ill-bred to take no notice of 
the letter when sent; and in such case, if you presented 
yourself with it, they would most probably receive you 
with rudeness." 

This assertion, in reference to compelling a reception, 
only holds good in circles where its members have been 
trained never to permit the rudeness of allowing callers to 
be shown in and out again, without seeing any of those 
upon whom the call is made ; and as long as there are fami- 
lies who are so uncivil as to do this, without offering any 
apology, those who present their letters in person must go 
prepared for such a result. Another rule that may be cited 



INVITATIONS TO MARRIED PERSONS. 43 

is the following, which, perfectly true in its general sense, 
has many exceptions : 

The Rl'le. — "You cannot invite people to your house 
until you have first called upon them in a formal manner 
and they have returned the visit." 

The reason for such a rule is given in the following 
words: "This acts as a safeguard against forming: undesir- 
able acquaintances," which, in itself, reveals to sensible 
people how many exceptions there must be to such a rule. 
Where families have been known to each other for a long 
time; where any degree of intimacy exists between any of 
the members of the two families ; where the lady inviting 
is much older than the one she invites ; and where there is 
too little time for the interchange of such civilities; are a 
few only of the many exceptions that prove the desirability 
of the general rule. 

Where an informal invitation is sent, under any of the 
above-named conditions, no cards are inclosed. When the 
invitation is formal, cards can be made to represent a call, 
although the courtesy is the same without the cards as 
with them. When invitations are not accepted and no call 
made within the customary time afterwards by those who 
are invited, it is understood that the acquaintance is not 
desired. But as it is considered uncourteous when no call 
is made after invitations have been extended, it is quite 
as easy to make the one call that common civility requires 
end the visiting, as to leave it unmade. 

In cases where for some reason a husband is to be invited, 
and those inviting do not wish to make the acquaintance of 
his wife, the invitation must be sent to both or to neither, 
if any ladies are invited. It is impossible to show a greater 
social affront to a man, than to invite him without inviting 
his wife, if, either by instinct or training, he feels any insult 
shown to his wife as keenly as he would if shown to him- 



44 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

self. Men thus invited sometimes go, expecting naturally 
to find only men entertained : but such a wanton insult — 
shown to himself as well as to his wife — could never be 
overlooked by any gentleman, unless it had arisen from 
un manque absolu d' education. In fast circles, defiant of 
the proprieties of life, this acme of incivility is indulged 
in, by those who know better. A brutal rudeness under 
all circumstances. Even to kettle-drums, that institution 
for women, the husbands must all be invited, if any are, 
leaving it optional with them to go or to stay away. As 
is well known, "an overwhelming majority" stay away. 
Some years ago a diplomatist married a woman of no 
reputation, and took her to an American watering-place 
for the summer. He was invited to dine at the house of 
an acquaintance, but no mention of his wife was made 
in the invitation. The excuse given in his family by the 
would-be host for this rudeness was, that the diplomatist 
had not announced his marriage to him ; and that even had 
the marriage taken place, he did not wish to see at his table 
a woman of more than doubtful character. The invitation 
was accepted, the dinner — a large one of ladies and gentle- 
men — arranged with the diplomatist as the guest of honor ; 
when, lo ! he did not appear, and the dinner had to be 
served without him. He had accepted under the supposi- 
tion that only men were to be invited, and learning to the 
contrary, he gave a merited rebuke to his acquaintance in 
the note of apology which he sent, saying that the sudden 
illness of his wife detained him. Either the dinner should 
have included only gentlemen, or the Baron should not 
have been invited. Here comes in the application of that 
divine command upon which all laws of social intercourse 
that are worth regarding are based : " Do unto others as 
you would have others do unto you." Had the host and 
hostess possessed that kindness of heart which goes far to- 



RUDENESS. * 45 

wards atoning for unintentional breaches of etiquette, their 
course would have been such as would have avoided the 
unnecessary wounding of the feelings of others, and they 
would themselves have been spared the annoyance of giv- 
ing a dinner for a foreign minister who did not appear as 
their guest. 

Impartial lookers-on always have harsh judgments for 
the rude and the unmannerly. There would be fewer such 
members of society, less ill-bred conduct, if people did but 
realize how much more they hurt themselves than they do 
others when they betray any vulgarity of nature. " This 
is the first time that I was ever in this house, and it is 
the last time," said a guest in a dressing-room, as she was 
donning her wraps preparatory to her departure from an 
evening party. "I dare say it is the first time you were 
ever invited, and after such a speech I hope it will be the 
last time," was the thought that passed through the mind 
of one who heard it. More recently a story has been 
going the rounds, the names having been carefully with- 
held, yet vouched for as to veracity. Two ladies meeting 
at a musical party, given at a watering-place, one accosted 
the other as follows : " We often meet, but you are so near- 
sighted that you never know me." 

" I am not near-sighted at all," was the curt reply. 

" I beg your pardon ; I thought you were." 

"Not at all, I had the pleasure of cutting you some 
time ago." 

As the story goes, the lady made no answer, but bowed 
and left the room, feeling sick at heart. Surely, those 
who witnessed the scene must have felt that she had nothing 
to regret in encountering a rudeness which terminated all 
intercourse with such an acquaintance, if the facts were 
stated correctly. 

Those who object to illustrations drawn from actual 



46 • SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

occurrences must remember, in extenuation, that not only 
Holy "Writ abounds with them, but that it is by seeing our- 
selves as others see us that we are able to correct our faults 
and our manners, and to aim to set a better example in 
future. 

A true woman of the world will not betray her aston- 
ishment at any violation of conventional rules, least of all 
will she make it her province to punish those who do vio- 
late them, but rather pass them over as springing from 
ignorance or thoughtlessness. But writers are not gen- 
erally women of the world, and it is the author's province 
to hold the mirror up to nature, and to use all the argu- 
ments and illustrations in his power to impress upon the 
minds of youth the fact that both ignorance and thought- 
lessness are vulgarities. Zimmerman tells us that to enter- 
tain and benefit readers, authors must deliver freely in 
writing that which in the general intercourse of society it 
would be impossible to say either with safety or politeness. 
They may even decompose the state of their own minds, 
he adds, and make observations on their own characters, 
for the benefit of other men, rather than leave their bodies 
by will to professors of anatomy. An author must speak 
in the language of truth ; in society a man is in the con- 
stant habit of feeling it only, for he must impose a neces- 
sary silence upon his lips. The manners of men are formed 
by intercourse with the world, and their characters by re- 
tiring into solitude, A knowledge of the world gives rich- 
ness and brilliancy to our thoughts, and teaches us to make 
a wise and happy application of them, while solitude and 
self-communion are indispensably necessary to give them 
a just, solid, firm, and forcible tone. The powers of the 
human soul are more extensive than they are in general 
imagined to be; and he who, urged by inclination, or com- 
pelled by necessity, most frequently exerts them, will soon 



SELF-COMMUNION. 47 

find that the highest felicities of which our nature is capa- 
ble reside entirely within ourselves. When Antisthenes 
was asked what service he had received from philosophy, 
he answered, " It has taught me to subdue myself." Pope 
said that lie never laid his head upon his pillow without 
reflecting that the most important lesson of life was to learn 
the art of being happy within himself. All those who are 
capable of living contentedly at home, who enjoy the pri- 
vacy of study, and the elegant recreation which books 
afford, who love every object by which they are surrounded, 
have not only found what Pope sought, but have learned 
how to bear most misfortunes. AVe never feel with higher 
energy and satisfaction, with greater comfort and cordiality, 
that we live, 'think, are reasonable beings, self-active, free, 
capable of the most sublime exertions, and partaking of 
immortality, than in those moments when we shut the door 
against the intrusions of impertinence and fashion, says the 
same author, continuing,— separated by distance from our 
friends, we feel ourselves deprived of the company of those 
who are dearest to our hearts ; and to relieve the dreary 
void, we aspire to the most sublime efforts, and adopt the 
boldest resolutions. On the contrary, while we are under 
the protecting care of friendship and love, while their kind 
offices supply all our wants, and their affectionate embraces 
lock us eternally in their arms, we forget, in the blandish- 
ments of such a state, almost the faculty of self-motion, 
and lose sight of the powers within us. Thus, denied what 
our hearts crave, we learn, in fixing the mind upon dis- 
charging the duties of humanity, and in conquering the 
difficulties in our paths, that inexpressible tranquillity and 
satisfaction which the soul feels when, contented within 
itself, it seeks no higher pleasure. 

How soon, alas ! the dignity of the human character be- 
comes debased by associating with low and little minds, 



48 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

which should reconcile us to those events of life which 
force us into comparative solitude. There are none who 
have reached middle life who cannot, in looking back, see 
how unhappy they would be had the Divine Providence 
granted them everything that they desired. Even under 
the very afflictions by which man conceives all the happi- 
ness of his life annihilated, God purposes something extra- 
ordinary in his favor. New circumstances excite new 
exertions. He who tries every expedient — who boldly 
opposes himself to every difficulty- — who stands ready and 
inflexible to every obstacle — who neglects no exertion within 
his power, and relies with confidence upon the assistance of 
God, extracts from affliction both its poison and its sting, 
and deprives misfortune of its victory. 

When we reflect that character is the only permanent 
possession that we can have — that all other mental posses- 
sions are to the spiritual body only what clothing is to the 
natural body — something put on and taken off as circum- 
stances vary — and that character is all that we can take 
away with us when we leave this life for the life beyond 
the grave, then it is that the truth forces itself upon us, 
that neither wealth nor poverty, neither strength nor weak- 
ness, neither genius nor the want of it, neither ten talents 
nor one, can excuse any human being from training his 
faculties in a way to develop them to the utmost, and form- 
ing them into a symmetrical whole. Where the law of 
kindness is the law of life in conduct, there will be found 
a character perfecting itself by preparation for that hour 
when all other possessions fail. For there is a transient 
and a permanent side to all our mental attributes, as in 
manners — the most external of them all. So far as we 
habituate ourselves to courtesy and good breeding because 
we shall stand better with the world if we are civil than if 
we are rude, we are cultivating a merely external habit, 



TRUE MANNERS. 49 

which we shall be likely to throw off as often as we think 
it safe to go without it, as we should an uncomfortably fit- 
ting garment; and our manners do not belong to our char- 
acters any more than our clothing belongs to our persons. 
This is the transient side of manners. If, on the contrary, 
we are civil from an inward conviction that civility is one 
of the forms of love to our neighbor, and because we be- 
lieve that in being civil we are performing a duty that our 
neighbor has a right to claim from us, and because civility 
is a trait we love for its own inherent beauty, our manners 
then belong to the substance of our character — they are not 
its garment; and this is the permanent side of manners. 
Such manners we carry with us into that life of perpetual 
advance that stretches forward into eternity. 

4 



50 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE, 



CHAPTER II. 



GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS — CAULS AND CARDS — RUT.ES FOR 
WATERING-PLACES— THE SOCIAL DOGBERRY— PROOFS OF 
GOOD BREEDING — NUISANCES IN SOCIETY. 

Who comes to make a formal call, 

Merely to criticize us all, 

When severed by the party wall ? 

My neighbor I — Punch. 

Well-dressed, well-bred, well-carriaged 
Is ticket good enough to pass us readily 

Through every door. — Cowper. 

To the unrefined or the underbred person the visiting card is but a 
trifling and insignificant bit of paper ; but to the cultured disciple of 
social law it conveys a subtle and unmistakable intelligence. Its tex- 
ture, style of engraving, and even the hour of leaving it, combine to 
place the stranger whose name it bears in a pleasant or a disagreeable 
attitude, even before his manners, conversation and face have been 
able to explain his social position. The higher the civilization of a 
community, the more careful is it to preserve the elegance of its so- 
cial forms. It is quite as easy to express a perfect breeding in the 
fashionable formalities of cards as by any other method, and perhaps, 
ind-cd, it is the safest herald of an introduction for a stranger. Its 
texture should be fine, its engraving a plain script, its size neither too 
small, so that its recipients shall say to themselves, " A whimsical 
person," nor too large, to suggest ostentation. Refinement seldom 
touches extremes in anything. — Home Journal. 

Miss Burney, in her novel of " Evelina/' says, " I think 
there ought to be a book of the laws and customs a la mode, 
presented to young people upon their introduction into 
public company." 

To some persons such a book may seem unnecessary in 
America (however important it may be for novices in Eng- 



IMPORTANCE OF BOOKS ON ETIQUETTE. 51 

lish society), for the reason that our ceremonies are so few and 
so simple, that all who have been well trained are supposed 
to understand them. However, at second thought, it will be 
remembered that customs are continually changing, and that 
mothers in America, with large families of children, some- 
times allow fifteen or twenty years to pass without troub- 
ling themselves about much that is outside of their own 
nurseries or households. When the seeming interests of a 
grown-up daughter demand that the mother shall herself 
return to society, she, feeling both indifferent and rusty, 
prefers to trust her child to the chaperonage of some rela- 
tive or friend. It does not always happen that the matron 
whom she selects is capable of instructing her charge, or it 
may be that it does not occur to her that the young girl 
given over to her care needs any such instruction. 

Again, take young persons of either sex who have been 
educated in the country, and bring them into the society of 
a city, what means have they of learning its customs, ex- 
cepting through dearly bought lessons of experience, which 
their sensibility might well have been spared had such a 
book as Miss Burney proposed been put into their hands. 

Good breeding is the same in the country as in the city, 
it is true, but customs vary in different sections. 

Bulwer says : " Just as the drilled soldier seems a much 
finer fellow than the raw recruit, because he knows how to 
carry himself, but after a year's discipline the raw recruit 
may excel in martial air the upright hero whom he now 
despairingly admires, and never dreams he can rival ; so 
set a mind from a village into the drill of a capital, and see 
it a year after ; it may tower a head higher than its re- 
cruiting sergeant." 

It is the constant drilling of parents and teachers, line 
upon line, precept upon precept, that is needed with the 
young. The uncultivated who ridicule this drilling, who 



52 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

refuse to observe the forms that the cultivated adopt, not 
only expose their own deficient training, but their conduct 
gives increased testimony to the necessity that exists for a 
more general understanding of those laws of social life 
which, like the laws of the universe, prevent all things 
from returning to chaos. Some of these laws of social life, 
like the laws of civil life, differ in different lands ; although 
not those that are the most essential in the regulation of 
conduct and behavior. Everywhere children are taught 
that affectation and pretence are vulgarities ; that it is a 
vulgarity to yawn without making some effort to suppress 
it, or without concealing the mouth ; to whistle or hum in 
the presence of older persons, whether in railway cars or in 
houses, or to make any monotonous noise with feet or 
hands, beating time, etc., to play with napkin rings, or 
with any article at the table during meal-time, to pick the 
teeth with the fingers, to cut or clean the nails outside of 
one's dressing-room, to lounge anywhere in the presence of 
company, to place the elbows on the table, or to lean upon 
it while eating, to take hold of persons or to touch them 
with familiarity while talking with them, to speak of ab- 
sent persons by their first names when yon would not so 
address them if they were present, to acquire the habit of 
saying "you know," "says he" and "says she;" to use 
slang words, to tattle, to scratch the head or person, to 
whisper in company, to hide the mouth with the hand when 
speaking, to point at any one or anything with the finger, to 
stare at persons, to laugh at one's own stories or remarks, to 
toss articles instead of handing them, and to take anything 
without thanking the one who waits upon you (excepting at 
table) be it a superior, an equal, or an inferior. Every- 
where, also, children are taught that it is a rudeness to stand 
in the way without instantly moving when another tries to 
pass; not to say "I beg pardon" when you have in any 



BREACHES OF GOOD MANNERS. 53 

way inconvenienced some one ; starting up suddenly and 
rushing from the room without asking to be excused; going 
before older persons, who are entitled to precede yon, when 
leaving a room with them ; leaving the table with food in the 
mouth; taking possession of a seat that belongs to another, 
and not rising instantly upon his return ; leaving any one 
without saying " good-bye," or giving at least a bow ; inter- 
rupting any one in conversation; contradicting, pushing, or 
even coming in contact with another unintentionally, with- 
out begging pardon for the seeming rudeness ; want of punc- 
tuality; neglecting to answer notes and letters promptly, 
especially those requiring information; ridiculing- others; 
passing any one whom you know without speaking, with 
whom you are on speaking terms; keeping the hat on in the 
house in the presence of a lady ; and many, many other 
equally important things which are looked upon in the same 
light everywhere. In all cultivated society these breaches 
of good manners, with many others too numerous to men- 
tion, are regarded either as vulgarities or as rudenesses. 
They denote want of early training or a coarse nature not 
susceptible of refinement, for manners are the fruits of mind. 
Not so, however, with the practice or the neglect of vary- 
ing social laws; such as are acquired either by mixing 
with the world or by that self-culture which leads a man 
to keep himself acquainted with the customs of the day. 
Good birth and good training are the privileges of the few ; 
but the habits and manners of a gentleman may be acquired 
by any man who possesses a desire to add the graces of 
high culture to those acquisitions of the understanding 
which are the essentials of culture. Some of these varying 
social laws are involved in the ceremony of leaving cards ; 
which laws have been derided during the course of many 
years as meaningless and stupid by the ignorant, as well as 
by many whose visiting is of such a simple character that 



54 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

no rules have been needed by them to regulate ceremonious 
calls. It is but four years ago that the author of an article 
on " Pasteboard Politeness " sneered at the various uses 
made of visiting cards in such a way as to demonstrate an 
ignorance of long-established customs worthy of BJp Van 
Winkle himself after his long slumber. But those who 
have been educated from their youth to look upon certain 
forms as necessary to save themselves and others from in- 
conveniences attendant upon a large acquaintance, and who 
know that by adopting these forms they are enabled to 
keep up ceremonious visiting with a circle too large for 
friendly intercourse, do not need to be told by this author 
that "the highest point of gentility (?) is reached by the use 
of visiting cards." They know their various uses, and no 
sneers, no misrepresentations will deter them from the sen- 
sible application which prescribed rules permit, for the 
saving of time and the fulfilment of required courtesies. 
They ought also to know that the use of the words " gen- 
tility" and "genteel" mark the class to which they belong, 
as they are not used in good society. 

It is the rules for visits of form or ceremonious calls that 
we now review, to see which are best adapted to our mode 
of life. The custom of making formal morning calls is 
only submitted to because of its absolute necessity ; calls 
being, in part, the basis upon which that great structure, 
society, mainly rests. American men are excused from 
morning calls because their days are occupied with busi- 
ness as a general rule ; but, in order that they may be re- 
membered by those who entertain, their cards are made to 
represent their owners, and are left either by some member 
of their respective families or by some acquaintance calling. 
Many of our men have adopted the sensible custom of call- 
ing in the evening, where they wish to do more than leave 
a card. All the strain which general society necessitates 



CALLS AND CARDS. 55 

is thrown off then, and acquaintance has an opportunity of 
ripening into friendship. When a gentleman is not ad- 
mitted the first time he calls, he leaves one card for the 
married lady of the house, one for her husband, both turned 
down, and one folded across the middle, for the remaining 
members of the family — daughters and sons. Upon sub- 
sequent occasions, until the year comes around again, he 
need not leave more than one card when calling, unless he 
prefers to do so ; this card so folded as to imply that it is 
left for the family. After any invitation he calls or sends a 
card, or, if a married man, his wife calls and leaves his card 
with her own, during the week following the entertain- 
ment. If one of the cards bears their names together, as 
" Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Smith," this card turned down is 
left for the lady, if she is not receiving; and one, with the 
husband's name alone, is left for the host, not turned, un- 
less he has called in person. No separate cards of the hus- 
band need be left upon the unmarried members of a family, 
unless one of them has left a card upon him, or their age 
is such as to require it; or when other exceptions make it 
desirable to do so. No lady leaves her own card upon a 
gentleman, nor a card bearing her own name with that 
of her husband. If guests are stopping in the house, 
cards must also be left upon them; or, if calling upon 
guests, where you do not know the host and hostess, you 
must inquire if the ladies are at home, and, not being ad- 
mitted, leave cards for the host and hostess, as well as for 
the guests; as this is one of the first requirements of good 
breeding. There are many who would like to dispense with 
this formality, who still feel themselves obliged to observe 
it because of their early training. There are many others 
who give evidence of the lack of proper instruction in their 
youth by making use of the house of those who are stran- 
gers to them with as much freedom and as little courtesy 



56 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

toward its occupants as if it were a hotel. " It is not a 
New York custom to leave cards in this way/ 7 said a lady. 
The reply was, " I do not know what the customs of to- 
day are in all New York society, but I do know that the 
old families observe the same punctilious respect to the 
required courtesies of life as they ever did, where their 
mothers have been women capable of teaching their chil- 
dren those duties that self-respect and respect for the claims 
of others require of them." 

After an interchange of cards, the acquaintance drops, 
unless followed by an invitation upon one side or the other. 
Where a first invitation is not accepted, and no reason is 
given for it other than that expressed in the usual form of 
regret, the invitation ought not to be repeated. Among 
the people of the highest cultivation it is binding to show 
one's appreciation of a first invitation by a cordial accept- 
ance, if one desires to keep the acquaintance, and by allowing 
nothing that can be controlled to prevent one from going. 
Still, circumstances may be such as to make it impossible, 
and then an informal note of explanation is courteous. 

Such calls as have been enumerated come under the head 
of genera] calls ; as also do calls that are made upon per- 
sons on one's visiting list who have been absent from their 
homes, either for a long foreign tour, or only for a limited 
time, as for the summer. In the latter case, the younger 
call first upon the elder ; or, where the ages are the same, 
those who return first in the autumn call first upon those 
who arrive later, unless there has been some remissness 
during the previous year, when the one who owes the cus- 
tomary visit after an invitation calls first, without refer- 
ence to age or time of return. 

P» P. C. cards are no longer left when the absence from 
home is only for a few months, as for the summer; nor are 
they left by persons starting in midsummer for a foreign 



CALLS AND CARDS. 57 

country, as residents are then supposed to be out of town. 
At watering-places and country estates, calls are made upon 
those who arrive later. At places of summer resort, those 
who own their cottages call first upon those who rent them ; 
and those who rent, in turn, call upon each other, accord- 
ing to the priority of arrival ; while both those who own 
and those who rent call first upon friends arriving at the 
hotels. In all these cases exceptions should be made where 
there is any great difference in the age; the younger then 
calling upon the elder, if there has been a previous ac- 
quaintance or exchange of calls. In first calls it is well 
to remember the English rule. The lady highest in rank 
makes the first call in England; and here, where age gives 
precedence, the elder lady pays the first call, unless she 
takes the initiative by inviting the younger to call upon 
her, or by sending her an invitation to some entertainment 
which she is about to give. An American lady visiting in 
England received an invitation from a titled lady, whom 
she had never met, with not even a card inclosed. She felt 
that as she was a stranger, the English lady ought to have 
called upon her before extending her proffered hospitality, 
but not being tenacious upon ceremonious points of eti- 
quette, she went to thank the lady, and to express her re- 
gret that mourning prevented her from accepting the invi- 
tation, when she found that the lady was so much older 
than herself as to quite remove the little feeling she had 
indulged in upon the informality shown her, which infor- 
mality she learned before she left England was much more 
complimentary to herself than any amount of formality 
(under the circumstances) could have been. 

AVhere daughters leave the cards of the mother, and 
the lady who receives them returns the call in person, ex- 
pressing her regret that she was not at home when the 
mother called, it is quite unnecessary to make any explana- 



58 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

tion, and it would be in fact both gauche and rude to reply 
that her daughters had left her cards for her. 

There are other cases where a seeming want of savoir- 
vivre, a seeming rudeness even, is justified by some event 
in the past, as in the following illustration : 

"Pray tell me, did you send Mrs. Clapham Bywell 
home from your kettle-drum, telling her that you had not 
invited her? Of course I know you did not, but I want 
to get at the foundation of the story," said one lady to 
another. 

" Mrs. Bywell was not at my kettle-drum. She came 
to one of my weekly receptions once, long ago, and as she 
was leaving, said : ' You see how soon I have returned 
your call.' I deliberated a moment, but I could not let 
her leave my roof without telling her that I had not called, 
not alone because she was an older resident, but because 
many years before she had called upon one of her cousins 
stopping with me, and had not asked for me nor left a card 
for me; so I said, 'I am indebted to a mistake, then, for 
the pleasure of seeing you, and I think I can explain it, 
for on last Friday I left cards at Mrs. Dr. Clapham's, as 
I supposed. Her cards bore no direction, and I got the 
street and number from Dr. Bywell's servant, who must 
have confused the names.' " 

This little incident also shows what gossip can do in the 
way of embellishing facts, without any assistance from the 
subjects of it. 

To return to calls made at places of summer resort. 
When it becomes a question as to which shall call first be- 
tween persons occupying neighboring villas, who arrived 
from different cities at the same time, the lady whose house 
is in the city nearest to the watering-place would assuredly 
feel herself at liberty to make the first call if she desired 
to make the acquaintance of her neighbor, provided they 



CALLS AND CARDS. 59 

had both rented the villas for the first time that season. 
If not, the one who has been the longest occupant calls 
first, without reference to the distance of their respective 
cities. When the occupants of two villas, who have arrived 
the same season, meet at the house of a common friend, and 
the elder of the two uses her privilege of inviting the other 
to call, there could be no farther question as to who should 
make the first visit. The sooner the call is made after such 
an invitation is extended, the more civil will it be consid- 
ered. Not to call would be a positive rudeness. Equally 
rude is it when one lady asks permission of another to bring 
a friend to call, and then neglects to do it after permis- 
sion has been given. In some foreign countries calls are 
often returned within twenty-four hours, for there are no 
exceptions in reference to the rule that requires all first 
calls to be returned promptly. If the acquaintance is not 
desired, your first call can be your last. A young Ameri- 
can gentleman, after calling upon a distinguished general 
in Paris (who was more than twice his own age), and then 
taking a drive in the Bois, went back to his bachelor apart- 
ments to find to his great surprise that his call had been 
returned the same day. Had he called upon an American 
citizen in his own land, of as exalted a position, the chances 
are that not even a card would have been returned, for our 
men have not been trained to lay much stress upon these 
marks of civility as proofs of good breeding. It is the 
strict observance of these trifling formalities which has 
caused the French to be considered par excellence the most 
polite people, although it is said that as a nation they carry 
their politeness no farther than the observance of hollow 
forms and necessary ceremonials. That genuine polite- 
ness of heart which leads those who possess it to do as they 
would be done by, will also lead its possessor never to re- 
sent the omissions of others; to be strict only with them- 



60 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

selves in the observance of established forms of civility, 
and to overlook the remissness of all. The most noble 
natures are the most placable ; and those who would act up 
to their Christian professions in small matters as well as in 
great, must pay visits they do not owe, and invite the 
negligent, where they are sure that the negligence has been 
from ignorance or thoughtlessness, and not from inten- 
tional rudeness. It is a good rule never to listen to the 
suggestions of pride, suspicion, or jealousy, in regulating 
our intercourse with the world. Even where injuries have 
been received in return for benefits, if you would know the 
happiness that true nobility of soul confers upon its pos- 
sessor, forgive and, as far as is possible, forget. The brave 
only know how to forgive. It is the most refined and 
generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at. The 
coward, the mean soul, never forgives ; but waits in am- 
bush for an opportunity to strike in the dark, or to stab in 
the- back. The power of forgiving flows only from a 
strength and greatness conscious of its own force and secu- 
rity, and above all the temptations of resenting every fruit- 
less attempt to destroy its happiness. Small minds are 
hurt by small events; great minds see through and despise 
them. Only the contemptible are capable of hatred. Like 
the useless bind-weed, it thrives best in a poor soil. Love 
to God and man is as essential to our happiness as is the 
air that we breathe to our existence. Hatred destroys the 
soul ; love develops and perfects it. The art of life is to 
acknowledge the base as base, the mean as mean, but not 
to degrade one's self by passionate resentment against base- 
ness and meanness. We cannot compel others to be good, 
but we can compel ourselves; and after all people are not 
so bad as they appear. They are only conceited or ill- 
bred ; and imagine they make themselves important and 
powerful because they can be rude and insulting. 



CALLS AND CARDS. 61 

Yet this Christian politeness, which leads persons to be 
strict only with themselves and indulgent with others, can- 
not always be carried out where a dissimilarity of views 
prevails as to social duties and privileges, and where dis- 
tinctions are made other than those conferred by education, 
cultivation, refinement, and morality. It would be sup- 
posed, generally, that there would be a certain class in 
every city who, by virtue of superior advantages of edu- 
cation and position, would hold such views in common 
with regard to their social duties as would prevent the pos- 
sibility of any material differences of opinion concerning 
them. Yet we find such a variety of views, maintained 
among those who are equally capable of judging of the 
requirements of good breeding, as can only be accounted 
for from the fact that "we have no code nor standard." 

There are certain duties which are the same everywhere, 
certain omissions which are rudenesses in all societies, and 
which no Christian politeness is sufficiently perfected to 
endure. Those duties ought to be taught by parents and 
teachers as thoroughly as the alphabet is taught, that no 
unnecessary coolness or estrangements may ever have an 
opportunity to grow out of them. Take, for instance, the 
subject treated of in this chapter, "Calls and Cards." Why 
is it that in the best society its members have decreed that, 
after receiving any unusual attention, a call shall be made 
in person, unless it is that the expression of kind feeling 
shown in the invitation requires some corresponding atten- 
tion, such as the call evidences, in return? When this 
mark of appreciation is withheld, the one who extends the 
courtesy has no means of knowing whether the neglect has 
arisen from ignorance of customs or total indifference to 
herself. Therefore we find the rule absolute, "Cards should 
be left at a house the day after, or at least within a week 
after, any entertainment to which the person leaving cards 



62 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

has been invited, whether she has been able to accept the 
invitation or not. Should unavoidable circumstances pre- 
vent this mark of appreciation of the courtesy extended, a 
note of explanation should be written." 

Take also, as an example, another rule which is equally 
binding : "When a lady announces herself as being at home 
on a certain day every week, it is not courteous to leave 
cards without going in on that day, or to call upon any 
other day, as it seems to denote no wish to see her." 

Surely a lady, finding these rules disregarded after a 
civility extended, would need a mantle of charity, as wide 
as St. Paul is supposed to have possessed, not to regard the 
breach of good manners as an affront to herself, especially 
if she happened to be the elder of the two. 

"Your daughter has quite neglected me this season," 
said an elderly lady, on one of her weekly reception days, 
to a lady calling. " Oh, my daughter has not time to make 
calls," was the answer. As the lady receiving was one 
whose time was so fully occupied that she had herself but 
few spare hours for formal social duties, she could not, after 
such an intimation, consistently add to the burdens of the 
young girl who had not time to fulfil the duties which were 
due to her superiors in age. 

Only calls of pure ceremony — such as are made pre- 
vious to an entertainment on those persons who are not to 
be invited, and to whom you are not indebted for any at- 
tentions — are made by handing in cards; nor can a call 
in person be returned by cards. This is a gross affront, 
especially if the younger leaves cards upon the elder in 
return for a call in person. 

Exceptions to this rule comprise P. P. C. cards, cards 
left or sent by persons in mourning, and those which 
announce a lady's day for receiving on her return to town 
in the autumn. Care should be taken that the latter cards 



CALLS AND CARDS. 68 

are not left by the younger upon the elder, where there is 
much difference in age, until the yearly call in person, 
which custom requires, has been made. If this call is not 
made, as is usual, in the autumn, upon return to the city, 
it must be paid during the first week in the new year, and 
returned within a fortnight. 

Ladies who are so remiss as to neglect the observance of 
these simple rules must, sooner or later, cease visiting each 
other; and, where their circles are very large, it is, in some 
cases, desirable that it should be so, for in this way it is 
possible for the elder person to diminish her list without 
appearing to be rude. When the yearly call due to an 
elderly person is not made, no invitation during the year 
can be expected from her, leaving it entirely optional with 
an entertainer to pass over the remissness, or to make an 
exception in favor of the one who has been neglectful. Thus 
it is possible to keep down the numbers in one's visiting 
list without causing any family to feel dropped. 

Abroad, the wives of American diplomatists are some- 
times complained of for their neglect in the etiquette of 
cards and calls, acceptances and regrets, and other forms 
and ceremonies of life at courts, which are held binding by 
those who are acquainted with them. It is always set down, 
however, to " American ignorance," not to indifference, since 
such a thing as indifference is impossible to those who have 
been trained to regard their observance as honorable. We 
ought to have sufficient charity to make the same excuse 
for remissness, since many of these rules are just as bind- 
ing here as abroad. 

To return to cards. After they have been left once in 
the season, they need not be left again, excepting after an 
invitation, or upon a guest stopping at the house. 

A gentleman invited by a lady to call upon her cannot, 
without showing her great discourtesy, neglect to pay the 



64 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

call within a week. He is not obliged to repeat it, or to do 
more than leave his card at her door. 

Cards and invitations sent by post should be removed 
from their stamped envelopes before putting them in the 
card-receiver. 

It has been seen that the rule found in books on etiquette, 
" Visiting-cards can under no circumstances be sent by 
post, or delivered in envelopes at the door," is in a fair 
way of now becoming a dead rule. It has, in fact, always 
had its exceptions, some of which are given elsewhere 

When a lady receives weekly, a resident, desirous of call- 
ing upon her, cannot make a first call on the reception day, 
unless asked to call on that day. 

After such a card has once been left, one is at liberty to 
call the following season on the same day, unless a card 
has been left or sent in the meantime with the day changed. 

Persons living in the same neighborhood should select the 
same day for receiving. It is too much to expect your friends 
to remember the days that are not arranged for particular 
localities, and wanting in thoughtfulness for their conveni- 
ence as well. 

The Countess of says, in her book, " Mixing in 

Society," " To receive visitors on a stated day in each week 
is only to be justified by the exigencies of a lofty position ;" 
to which should be added for our use in this country, 
" unless the convenience of callers is studied by an entire 
neighborhood uniting on the same day." This custom, as 
practiced in Boston and New York, takes away from it 
much of the inconvenience ; but great complaint is made 
in some of our cities of a want of consideration in this par- 
ticular. The day fixed upon by the oldest resident should 
be adopted by all. 

One cannot return the calls of elderly ladies, or even of 
their equals in age, "by leaving cards at the door. It is 



CALLS AND CARDS. 65 

not considered respectful. If the cards of persons much 
younger are left, after hospitalities extended to them, one 
is at liberty to make a card serve for a return visit. To 
the French is due the custom of making the delivery of a 
card answer for the appearance of the individual. It is a 
great convenience for elderly persons and invalids, who 
have no daughters to make their calls for them, as well as 
for ladies who have a large visiting list and occupations 
which leave them but little time for formal calls. It can- 
not be recommended for others, as there are some ladies 
who take offence at finding cards left without any inquiry 
being made as to whether they are receiving. 

A call upon persons in mourning and all cards of con- 
dolence should be returned with mourning cards, when 
the family begin to make their appearance in public. 
AVhen admitted upon a call of condolence — made within 
ten days after the death if on intimate terms with the family, 
or within a month otherwise — care must be had not to al- 
lude to the event first, and if spoken of not to dwell upon 
the particulars, unless it is evident that the bereaved de- 
sire it. Those acquaintances who wish to leave cards only 
inquire after the health of the family, leaving their cards 
in person. Until the cards of formal acquaintances have 
been returned by cards of the bereaved, it is not well to 
repeat the call. 

Cards of congratulation must be left in person, or a con- 
gratulatory note, if desired, can be made to serve instead 
of a call ; excepting upon the newly married. Calls in 
person are due to them, and to the parents who have in- 
vited you to the marriage. Where there has been a re- 
ception after the ceremony, which you have been unable to 
attend, but have sent cards by some member of your family, 
your cards need not again represent you until they have 
been returned, with the new residence announced ; but a 

3 



66 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

call is due to the parents or relatives who have given the 
reception. When no wedding cards are sent you, nor 
the card of the bridegroom, you cannot call without being 
considered intrusive. If, however, you have reason to 
think the remissness an unintentional one, you can place it 
in the power of some member of the family to make the 
requisite explanation, which will restore the visiting if de- 
sired by both parties. When a betrothal takes place, and 
is formally announced to the relatives and friends on both 
sides, calls of congratulation follow. The fiance, or bride- 
groom that is to be, is introduced by the family of the 
fiancee to their connections and most intimate friends, and 
his family in return introduce her to relatives and ac- 
quaintances whom they desire her to know. The simplest 
way of bringing this about is by the parents leaving the 
cards of the betrothed with their own, upon all families 
on their visiting list whom they wish to have the betrothed 
pair visit. 

" Calls ought to be made within three days after a dinner, 
or any entertainment of any kind, if it is a first invitation ; 
and within a week after a party or a ball, whether you 
have accepted the invitation or not." In France these calls 
are known as " les visites de digestion" and are strictly en- 
forced ; but they make cards do duty for calls in person, 
after marriages, births, and deaths. 

One month after the birth of a child the call of congrat- 
ulation is made by acquaintances. Relatives and intimate 
friends call sooner, often to the injury of the young mother 
and her babe. 

It is not customary to receive the calls that are made 
after an entertainment, excepting where the lady w T ho enter- 
tained has a day, or when she has friends staying with her. 
For this reason persons who wish to leave cards only, call 
within the prescribed three days, as they are then sure of 



CALLS AND CARDS. 67 

not being admitted where the customs of society are under- 
stood. 

Calling hours vary in our cities, beginning as early as 
twelve o'clock in small towns. From two to four o'clock 
neither lunch nor the afternoon drive is interfered with, 
and seems to be preferred by many in large cities. A lady 
who has no day will endeavor to receive callers at any time. 
If she is occupied, she will instruct her servant to say that 
she is engaged, as soon as they are asked if she is receiving; 
for a visitor, once admitted into the house, must be seen at 
any inconvenience. Should the wrong servant have gone to 
the door, and have admitted a caller by mistake, the proper 
servant may be sent with an explanation, in cases where it 
is impossible for any member of the family to appear. But 
care must be taken that no recurrence takes place, unless 
she is willing to be stigmatized as ill-bred. 

A lady should never keep a visitor waiting, without 
sending down to see whether a delay of a few minutes will 
inconvenience the caller. Servants should be instructed to 
return in all instances to announce to the one waiting 
that the lady will be down immediately. They sometimes 
neglect doing so, where they have not been properly in- 
structed, from the fact that they think their mistress will 
reach the drawing-room sooner than they can. They thus 
cause her to appear rude when necessarily detained for a 
few moments. Any delay whatever should always be 
apologized for. 

If, on making a call, you are introduced into a room 
where you are unknown to those assembled, at once give 
your name and mention upon whom your call is made. 

In meeting a lady or a gentleman whose name you can- 
not recall, frankly say so if you find it necessary. There 
are no sensible persons who would not prefer to recall 
themselves to your memory than to feel that you were talk- 



68 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

ing to them without full recognition. The idea that it is 
rude has no foundation, excepting in overweening self-love. 
To affect not to remember a person is despicable, and re- 
flects only on the pretender. 

If a guest uses your drawing-room to receive callers who 
have not asked for you, and the card of a caller upon your- 
self is sent up to you, do not send for the caller to join you 
in another room, but enter your drawing-room as mistress 
of your own house, and receive him there. It is the duty 
of the guest to guard against the possibility of her hostess 
being annoyed by any want of respect shown to her ; and 
equally incumbent upon the hostess is it to see that guests 
share with her the attention of her own friends. 

Gentlemen leave their umbrellas, overcoats, and over- 
shoes in the hall ; but take their hats and sticks with them 
into the drawing-room, unless they are calling on old 
friends. The hat and stick should never be deposited upon 
a chair or table, or any other article of furniture. They can 
be placed upon the floor, very near the chair occupied by 
the owner, if he does not wish to retain them in his hands. 

The following imaginary incident illustrates a first call : 
Mr. Harcourt, formerly of New York, observing the rules 
in his own city, calls on a family in another city where he 
is residing, between four and five o'clock, and arrives just 
as the waiter is decanting some sherry for dinner, no but- 
ler being on duty. Bridget, the new kitchen-maid, is 
asked to answer the bell, and is not told that the ladies are 
engaged. The caller is shown into the reception-room, and 
gives his name, " Mr. Harcourt." Bridget repeats, ques- 
tioningly, " Mr. Hartichoke ?" By this time the young 
man is clever enough to see that he must send up his card 
if he would have his name given correctly, notwithstand- 
ing directions given in books of etiquette to the contrary, 
and which directions hold good only where the callers are 



CALLS AND CARDS. 69 

well known to the servants. Selecting a spotless card, he 
hands it to Bridget, and she, remembering her mistress's in- 
structions upon previous occasions, delivers the card upon 
the small silver tray kept for the purpose upon the hall 
table, thus insuring its delivery in an equally good con- 
dition — not soiled with finger-marks. Mrs. Bartlett tak- 
ing it, reads aloud, " ' Mr. Charles Harcourt.' Bridget, I 
hope you said that we are engaged." 

"No, indeed, mum; I wouldn't think of takin' such a 
liberty, when I hadn't been told to say so." 

" 1 am sure I do not regret Bridget's mistake, mamma ; 
I like Mr. Harcourt; you know he is a friend of Charlie's, 
and had himself introduced to us last evening. I would 
have been very sorry to miss his first call," said Miss Julia. 

" But I dare say he only wished to leave his card," re- 
plied Mrs. Bartlett. 

" Julia, as you wish to see him, you can go down with 
mamma ; please make my excuses, as I am going to dress 
for dinner," said Miss Bartlett. 

Mrs. Bartlett and Miss Julia, who had come in from a 
drive, went down in their street costume, and found Mr. 
Harcourt seated, his hat and his stick in his left hand. He 
arose as they entered, and remained standing until they 
were seated. Being no monopolist in conversation, and 
equally ready to listen as to speak, the fifteen minutes 
which he has devoted to his call pass agreeably to all ; for 
he has not affected Mrs. Bartlett's nerves by flourishing his 
cane or twirling his hat. "Without looking at his watch, 
he rises to leave ; Miss Julia rises also, and Mrs. Bartlett 
extends her first invitation to him in this way: 

"We are at home from three to five on Wednesdays, 
and I hope to see you soon again, Mr. Harcourt." 

He thanks her, and leaves the house, with some such 
reflections as these : 



70 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

" I fancy the housemaid blundered in admitting me, as 
Mrs. Bartlett has a day for receiving; and then, too, I 
noticed that both mother and daughter wore short street 
suits. I call that good breeding ; they did not keep me 
waiting while they changed their gowns; and they would 
not send me down word, after I got in, that they were 
engaged, as they did the other day at Madame Newriches." 

After dinner, Miss Julia secured Mr. Harcourt's card, 
and copied his name and direction in the book kept for 
registering their visitors alphabetically. By so doing she 
insured his being invited when invitations were sent out 
for their next general entertainment. 

And here the prediction may be ventured that Mr. Har- 
court, having received so courteous a reception from Mrs. 
Bartlett, will show himself equally courteous by answer- 
ing the invitation as soon as he receives it. 

Society has become so extended in our cities that it is 
impossible for the heads of families to invite young men 
to call whom they would be glad to see in their homes, as 
was the custom in past generations. Mr. Harcourt, it will 
be seen, adopted a foreign custom, which it would be well to 
introduce in America, and already it prevails in some trav- 
elled circles. In most countries on the continent of Europe 
a gentleman who has had himself introduced to a lady calls 
the following day. This call is returned by the gentleman 
of the house if the acquaintance is agreeable. If a gentle- 
man has been introduced, and does not call, not even a 
bowing acquaintance is continued. All mothers who do 
not go out with their daughters must see how much more 
agreeable is this way of giving a gentleman the entrance to 
their houses, than it is to impose upon their young daughters 
the disagreeable task of inviting men to call. No: does it 
force hospitalities upon them, as the author of " Pasteboard 
Politeness" asserts. Few parents are found who are will- 



CALLS AND CARDS. 71 

ing to dispense with all forms, and who permit men to come 
and go without some orthodox preliminaries even in our 
republican society. 

For the same reason (the rapid increase of the numbers 
in society) daughters or sons are often invited without their 
parents, where the acquaintance of the families with each 
other has been a recent thing. Parents who leave or send 
their cards, after their children have received any such 
attention, are not compelled to make any further inter- 
change ; nor is the familv receiving- them obliged to do 
more than return the cards. Cards ought not to be left on 
the daughters of a family without including the parents in 
this courteous formality, unless in exceptional cases. Where 
an elderly married lady invites a younger married one to 
call upon her, the call must be made within a few days, 
and returned at once, if both ladies desire the acquaintance. 

Gentlemen, as well as ladies, when making calls, send 
in but one card, no matter how many members of the 
family they may wish to see. If a guest is stopping with 
a friend, the same rule is observed, but one card is sent in, 
and that one not turned down. If not at home, one card 
is left for the lady of the house and one for the guest. 
Should it be the first call of the season, a third card is left, 
folded down the middle, for the other members of the 
family. This third card is omitted often among friends by 
those who punctiliously leave it with mere acquaintances. 
The card for the lady of the house may be so folded as to 
include the family, but a separate card for the guest is 
essential. Calls made on reception days where a guest is 
staying are not binding upon the guest to return. No sepa- 
rate card should be left for a guest on a reception day. 

Members of societies or clubs, who meet weekly at each 
others' houses for social purposes, do not leave cards after 
these entertainments. Those friends or acquaintances who 



72 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

are not members, but who are invited by the gentleman 
entertaining, hand in or send their cards afterwards, in 
acknowledgment of the courtesy extended to them. 

It is for this ceremonious card-leaving that it is now pro- 
posed to send the cards by post, which sensible people in 
England are advocating, as well as sensible people here. 
One card is all that is required after gentlemen's suppers. 

It is never necessary to deluge a family with cards. A 
lady calling on a friend who had a house full of guests, 
left the orthodox three cards from each member of her 
family, folded or cornered in such a way as to include all 
the family and all the guests. Callers, later in the day, 
who were more fortunate in finding the ladies at home, 
were entertained by the younger members of the household 
with a display of cards left by this one lady, which nearly 
covered the grand piano, provoking the mirth of some of 
those who saw it. And yet the lady had handed in only 
such as civility required, if all the members of her own large 
family wished their cards to be left; though, by doing so she 
seemed to infringe upon the rule which makes it not good 
form for more than two, or three at most, out of one family 
to call together. " Pasteboard is cheap, use plenty of it," 
is the maxim of some persons, but it is better to use too 
little than too much. 

A gentleman's card bears his direction on the right hand 
corner (face towards you), unless the name of some club, 
when it is placed in the left-hand corner. 

The question is frequently asked, Which is the proper 
end to turn down ? In the United States we do not give 
to the "cornering" of cards that significance which some 
European nations attach. When the lady's reception day 
is engraved where it ought to be, on the lower left-hand 
corner (holding the card facing towards you), it is the right- 
hand end of the card which is turned down. So long as 



CALLS AND CARDS. 78 

the card is turned down, it does not matter whether it is the 
right hand or the left, excepting as it facilitates the reading 
of the reception day in the left-hand corner. 

When the name of the husband and wife is on one card, 
as " Mr. and Mrs. Blank," the reception day is of course 
omitted, and the reading of the surname is easier if the 
left-hand end of the card, where the " Mr. and Mrs." are 
placed, is turned down. But its signification is the same 
in either case; it shows that the card was left in person, 
and that the owner would have come in, had the one upon 
whom it was left been receiving. There is absolutely no 
other general meaning attached to the turning of a card, 
across either the right or the left end in America, which 
leaves it optional with all to do as they choose. Not 
to turn a card causes the leaver of it to be liable to the 
suspicion of having sent it by a servant. In countries 
where great stress is laid upon such trifles, even those who 
send their cards by servants turn them across one end, as 
if they had left them in person. 

A recent writer in Harper's Bazar says : " The etiquette 
of polite life is written in a despotic code, and those who 
obey any of it are not excused from obeying the whole." 
Now it is well known that there are many points of eti- 
quette the observance of which has no tendency to sim- 
plify and make easier our social intercourse. In a republic 
these minor points may be advantageously dispensed with, 
not only because they are useless, but because their ten- 
dency is to create embarrassments as long as these forms 
are not understood alike by all. It is not long since that 
a foreign minister at a certain European court bored every 
one with whom he conversed by narrating the grievances 
to which he had been subjected ; the chief of which was 
that the card of another minister had been left upon him 
without being turned down, which was only an omission 



74 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

of one of the minor and most unimportant of arbitrary 
rules — not worth a thought, as we are trained to think. 
It is, of course, quite proper that it should be understood 
that all cards left in person, excepting those left on recep- 
tion days, should be turned down across one end, or at one 
corner ; and that a card which is not turned down denotes 
one of three things : either that it has been merely sent in 
by some one before being admitted, to ascertain whether 
the lady or ladies are receiving; or left because it is the 
custom to leave a card upon a reception day, for the pur- 
pose of refreshing the memory of the hostess; or, that it 
has not been delivered in person, but sent by a servant. 
When cards are sent by a footman, it should be remem- 
bered that it is not en regie to inclose them in an envelope, 
or, if so inclosed, the servant should be instructed to re- 
move the envelope before delivering the cards. Trifling 
as such points are, there are reasons for their observance 
which must upon thought make themselves evident to 
every well-bred person. Still, even if a difference of opinion 
is held as to the vitality of such points, it must certainly 
be acknowledged that the observance or non-observance of 
them is not of sufficient consequence to create so much feel- 
ing as the minister in question indulged in, or as to be 
made an occasion for the manifestation of unchristian sen- 
timents, the strengthening of narrow prejudices, and the 
building up of vulgar feuds. 

But if, as the writer in Harper asserts, the laws of social 
life, like the laws of the universe, prevent all things from 
returning to chaos, then is it not worth our while to look 
into these laws, searching to see how far they combine the 
spirit of a gentleman with the spirit of religion, and up- 
holding and maintaining the use of such as are fitted for 
our institutions and our mode of life? It is not many 
years since a lady, finding diverse views prevailing in the 



CALLS AND CARDS. 75 

city where she resided as to certain social customs that 
ought to be the same everywhere, published an article, 
taking the ground that the diversity of opinion which 
exists with us in reference to many points in social life is 
unfortunate and chat where no fixed rules exist there must 
always be misapprehensions and misunderstandings, rude- 
nesses suspected, and sometimes resented, where none are 
intended, to the great perplexity of the offender as to the 
cause of the offence. But, sensible as this must seem to 
all who have been trained to observe and obey social laws, 
there were found some critics who, seeing no need for the 
reaching forward to a higher level of life and manners, 
used all the weapons of ridicule in their power to attack 
the essay and its writer, asserting (as did Dogberry with 
reading and writing) that "a knowledge of the different 
duties of fashionable life comes intuitively." In other 
words, that good manners are inherited — that they come 
with good birth. It is generally supposed that good or bad 
manners depend entirely upon the instruction that one has 
had at the mother's knee, as it were ; that good manners com- 
mence in the nursery, when the mother is herself well-bred. 
To argue otherwise, proves utter ignorance of good breeding. 
Social laws are not immutable ; they differ with the age 
and with the various customs of the various countries of 
our globe. Where the Scripture injunctions are put in 
practice, "Be ye courteous," and " Do unto others as you 
would have others do unto you," where self is put out of 
sight, and a kind thoughtfulness of others takes its place, 
but little more is needed, it is true, in the way of being 
thoroughly well-bred ; still a knowledge of the customs 
ofthedayis necessary for those who wish to contribute 
their quota toward making " the cogs and wheels " of social 
life run smoothly ; and the social Dogberry, who asserts 
that such knowledge comes "intuitively," proclaims his 



76 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

ignorance of the first principles of good breeding. Not 
only does it not come intuitively, but the customs of differ- 
ent countries vary so much that the rules laid down in one 
country very often do not suit the mode of life of another 
country. 

A writer upon card-leaving in London instructs her 
readers in a point of London etiquette, which is entirely un- 
suitable for us, unless we carry out in our households other 
London customs. This writer says : " When a lady calls 
at a house and finds the lady on whom she calls at home, 
it is incorrect to give her card to the servant ; and a well- 
trained domestic suppresses it altogether instead of giving 
it to his mistress." Why does he suppress it? Because 
the footman in London is trained to announce the name 
distinctly as he ushers the caller into the room where his 
mistress is receiving. It is absolutely necessary, where 
the servant has not had previous instructions, as so often 
happens in America, in reference to his mistress being at 
home, or not at home, or engaged — it is absolutely neces- 
sary that the card be sent in (only one, no matter how 
many members in the family, and that one not turned 
down) to ascertain whether the ladies are at home to callers; 
otherwise some General Offenbach's name might be trans- 
formed into the unrecognizable one of General Bricabrac. 
Most of the rules of society, like all general rules, have 
their exceptions. It is where these exceptions are not 
known, that the rules, when followed, create confusion. 
On reception days, the well-drilled servant in American 
cities receives the card of the caller on a small salver, 
and, of course, suppresses it, because the card is only de- 
sired by the hostess to refresh her memory as to who has 
been present at her reception. Otherwise, her memory 
would be taxed. Where a lady has one day in every 
week, and this day for some reason is an inconvenient one 



CALLS AND CARDS. 77 

to some of her friends, whose day may be the same, for 
instance, cards ought not to be sent through others, but the 
call made upon some other day. To return a call made 
in person with cards inclosed in an envelope is an intima- 
tion that visiting between the parties is ended. Those who 
leave or send their cards with no such intention should 
remember not to inclose them, for, as has been justly said, 
although such small details appear trivial, it is the ac- 
curate knowledge and practice of them that constitutes 
the difference between savoir-vivre and want of knowl- 
edge. One of the exceptions to the last-mentioned rule — 
as to inclosing cards in envelopes — is, where they are sent 
in return to the newly married living in other cities; or in 
answering wedding cards forwarded in absence from home. 
P. P. C. cards are also sent in this way, and are the 
only cards that it is as yet universally considered admissi- 
ble to send by post. We would be glad to have it under- 
stood that our business men in American cities might he 
so privileged, after having accepted hospitalities, or after 
receiving invitations which they have not been able to 
accept. Many of our young men have too little time for 
reading and riding and driving, without feeling themselves 
compelled to waste their leisure hours in making unsatis- 
factory calls : and the hostess who receives such cards would 
still be able to discriminate between those men who remem- 
bered her civility, and those who met it with seeming for- 
getfulness. However, in American cities, men can always 
find friends who will deliver their cards for them when de- 
livering their own. Certainly, for such an exception might 
be made to the rule, — " No cards can be handed in on a 
weekly reception day, excepting those that are left by 
callers." 

Will not some of our New York men move in the matter 
of inclosing their cards to ladies who have honored them 



78 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

with invitations, and inaugurate the custom here of send- 
ing them hy post ? The man who cannot find time to re- 
member, in this way, a lady who has not forgotten him, 
will not be found among those who have had mothers able 
to instruct them as to their social duties and privileges. 

It is a move in the right direction, the sending of cards 
on full reception days by post and by messenger-boys where 
the senders are in mourning ; or where, for any reason, 
they are not able to appear. If this observance ever 
becomes general, and the prescribed call afterwards is dis- 
pensed with, it will make the inundation of invitations for 
kettle-drums and day receptions less dreaded by those who 
do not attend them, and who have little time to spare for 
making ceremonious calls. ^Naturally, a first invitation 
would not be so unceremoniously treated, nor other invita- 
tions than those for kettle-drums and day receptions. The 
delicate shades, where ceremonies are binding, are easily 
discriminated hy the sensible and the kind-hearted. 

To return to visiting cards. It has been said that "cards 
bearing the name of the husband and the wife together are 
no longer in good style." This is an error. The reason why 
they are less used is, that ladies who have their weekly 
reception days prefer to use the cards which have their 
days engraved upon them, and these days are never placed 
upon the card bearing the name of the husband and the wife 
together. When the separate card of the lady is left upon 
a married lady, whose husband is living, two cards of her 
husband should also be left (when making formal calls), 
one for the wife, the other for the husband. But, after the 
first call of the season, it is not necessary to leave the hus- 
band's card a second time during the year, unless some 
invitation has been extended in the meantime, or some 
attention bestowed. So it is seen that the name of the 
husband and the wife together is still as good form as ever ? 



CALLS AND CARDS. 79 

although less used. In fact, it is a necessity to possess such 
cards, and to use them when occasion requires, as in leaving 
cards of condolence, when it would be very thoughtless to 
hand in a card bearing the reception day upon it. Where, 
as after a long round of visits, there is any scarcity of 
cards in paying morning calls, ladies often fold one of their 
cards across the end, to show that they have left it in per- 
son, turning down one or two corners for one or two per- 
sons. The English custom of folding the lady's card up 
.and down across the middle, for all the ladies in the family, 
is preferable. The same with the card of the gentleman. 
It is certainly more civil to leave a separate card for each 
lady (not to exceed three, how T ever), when the first call of 
the season is made. 

Gentlemen should not expect to receive invitations from 
ladies with whom they are only on terms of formal visit- 
ing, until the yearly or autumnal call lias been made, or 
until their cards have been made to represent themselves. 

When the ladies of a family are receiving, but have no 
weekly reception day, the cards of gentlemen not accom- 
panying the callers, and of aged persons who have ceased 
all formal visiting, are left on the hall-table, if the servant 
opening the door has no tray to receive them. Strangers 
arriving are expected to send their cards to their acquaint- 
ances bearing their direction, as an announcement that they 
are in the neighborhood. This rule is often neglected, but 
unless it is observed strangers may be a long time in town 
without their presence being known. These cards can be 
sent by post. 

A first call, as has been already said, ought to be re- 
turned within three or four days. A longer delay than a 
week is considered an intimation that you are unwilling to 
accept the new acquaintance, unless some excuse for the 
remissness is made. A card left at a farewell visit, before 



80 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

a long-protracted absence, has P. P. C. written in one cor- 
ner. This custom is less observed than formerly. It is 
not necessary to deliver such cards in person, however; 
they can be sent by a servant or by post. 

A mooted point, which might as well be a settled one, is 
in reference to the correct way of writing " P. P. C." and 
" R. S. Y. P." Many affirm that it is incorrect to use 
capitals, asking how the sentences would look if written 
out in full, "Pour Prendre Conge I" and " Bepliquez S'il 
Vous Plait V Since the time of the Romans capital letters 
have been used in writing or printing all abbreviated sen- 
tences ; as, for instance, " P.M." for post meridian, and 
"A.M." for ante meridian. This is probably the expla- 
nation. Writing R. s. v. p. and P. p. c. seems to be an 
American innovation, and rather a finical one, with the 
Roman custom in mind. A lawyer, of widespread repu- 
tation, was once cited as authority for writing p. p. c, but 
the one who advocated the use of capitals asserted that she 
had more confidence in his legal ability than as an authority 
in social observances; especially as in administering a re- 
proof to the lady who had P. P. C. on her card (which he 
tore up, with the remark that he had expected better things 
of her), he had shown more of the judge than the gentle- 
man. 

Among; intimate friends informal calls, made out of the 
conventional visiting hours, are the most agreeable. It 
has been already stated that the hours in which morning 
calls are made vary in different cities. Where lunch is 
served at one o'clock, and dinner at six or seven o'clock, 
the calling hours are from two to five. Where early din- 
ners are the custom, from one to four are the usual hours, 
and in some towns from twelve to three; but a formal call 
should not be made before noon in any place. It is easy 
to ascertain the customs of a city before calling. 



CALLS AND CARDS. 81 

Gentlemen who are frequent visitors at a house feel at 
liberty to leave their hats and sticks in the hall. Neither 
children nor dogs are taken out when making formal calls. 
Two persons out of one family, or at the most three per- 
sons, can make calls together. Gentlemen wear their usual 
morning dress, a black cut-away, or a frock-coat, dark 
trowsers, silk necktie (black is in the best taste), and a me- 
dium or neutral shade of gloves. In warm weather, light 
gray or colored trowsers, colored neckties, and white vest 
are often worn. At the seaside, and at all summer resorts, 
calls are made in suits of rough cloth by those gentlemen 
who prefer following sensible English customs to submit- 
ting to the regulations made for city life, and which are 
always irksome to men who have no taste for summer 
gayeties. 

Ladies, in making calls in cities, dress with much more 
elegance than for walking or for shopping; but at the sea- 
side, or at any place of summer resort, it is becoming op- 
tional with them, where no reception days are set apart 
weekly, to call in calling hours, and in visiting toilettes; 
or to make informal calls in morning dresses ; or to pay 
their visits of ceremony between four and five o'clock — 
before the afternoon drive — in driving toilette. This latter 
mode has the advantage of allowing ladies to remain at 
home during the hottest part of the day, and of not over- 
taxing their horses. Where there is any degree of inti- 
macy, or a long acquaintance, the early morning call in 
morning dress is preferable. 

Some ladies in cities are at home to their most intimate 
friends at all hours, who are never at home to mere ac- 
quaintances in calling hours, for the reason that they 
know in making a round of formal calls, ladies often do 
not expect or wish to be admitted. This fact has caused 
many to look more leniently than they formerly did upon 



QZ SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the French mode of leaving cards, without inquiring if the 
ladies are at home, when the call is one of pure ceremony. 
For fear of giving offence, it is better for the young, and for 
those who have the time to spare, to make the inquiry ; but 
elderly persons, and those whose days are not long enough 
for them, on account of the engrossing nature of their occu- 
pation, should always be excused when they prefer to make 
their cards serve as substitutes for themselves, after an ex- 
change of calls. To ladies whose circle of visiting acquaint- 
ance is small, such ceremonious visits cannot but seem to 
be a mere farce, where the performers play their part with- 
out even the pretence of sincerity, but those who number 
several hundred families on their lists appreciate all time- 
saving innovations, especially if they entertain frequently; 
and consequently they learn to appreciate fully the observ- 
ances that enable them to keep up a ceremonious acquaint- 
ance with a circle too lar^e for friendlv visiting;. All in- 
nocent and sensible new customs should be welcomed that 
have a tendency to save labor, to prevent the waste of time, 
and to harmonize varying interests. 

A lady receiving morning calls wears a silk gown, high 
in the neck, with long sleeves; no diamonds, and no flow- 
ers in her cap or in her hair; both being reserved for 
dinner toilet. This is a rule that is as universally regarded 
as that men shall not appear in dress-coats and white neck- 
ties by daylight, or at least until the dinner hour. Ex- 
ceptions are made upon unusual occasions only. 

The lady of the house rises when her visitors enter, who 
immediately advance to pay their respects to her before 
speaking to others. She designates a seat near her own to 
the last arrivals if she is able to do so. Gentlemen take 
any vacant chair, without troubling their hostess to look 
after them. Where the conversation is under her control, 
she generalizes it, endeavoring to give scandal-mongers no 



CALLS AND CARDS. 83 

opportunity to indulge in that gossip which bears unerring 
evidence of vulgarity, as well as bad breeding and a sterile 
mind. If too many callers are present to enable her to 
keep the lead in conversation, she pays especial attention 
to the last arrivals, watching to see that no one is left 
alone, and talking to each of her guests in succession, or 
seeing that some one is doing- so. 

© © 

A well-bred lady pays equal attention to all her callers. 
It is allowable to pay extra attention to any person of dis- 
tinguished rank, to strangers, to age, or world-wide repu- 
tation. To do homage to the rich, simply because they 
are rich, is a piece of snobbism which even the amiable find 
difficult to forgive. 

A lady who is not in her own house, does not rise either 
on the arrival or the departure of ladies, unless there is 
some great difference in age. Attention to the aged is one 
of the marks of good breeding which is never neglected 
by the thoughtful and refined. 

It is not customary to introduce residents unless the 
hostess knows that an introduction will be agreeable to 
both parties. Strangers in the city are introduced. The 
rule is to force no one into an acquaintance; and although 
the hostess would gladly introduce all who meet under her 
roof, she will not assume that responsibility when she 
knows to what disagreeable experiences she may expose 
her friends by so doing, so long as there are people to be 
met with in society who are not sufficiently well bred to 
receive such introductions in a civil manner. Ladies and 
gentlemen are privileged to speak to each other, who meet 
in the drawing-room of a common friend, without any in- 
troduction ; though gentlemen generally prefer to ask for 
introductions. When introduced to any one, bow slightly 
and enter at once into conversation. It is a great want 
of good breeding not to do so. 



8-i SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

When introductions are given, it is the gentleman who 
should be presented to the lady ; when two ladies are in- 
troduced, it is the younger who is presented to the elder. 
For example, in presenting Mr. Jones to Mrs. Smith, it is 
Mr. Jones's name that is first mentioned. The word " in- 
troduce" is preferred to "present." Presentations are as- 
sociated with courts more than with republics. The least 
formal introductions are given by merely mentioning the 
names, as " Mr. Jones, Mrs. Smith." This is all that is 
necessary under ordinary circumstances. 

A lady receiving gives her hand to a stranger as to a 
friend, when she wishes to bestow some mark of cordiality 
in welcoming a guest to her home, but a gentleman ought 
not to take the initiatory in hand shaking. It is the lady's 
privilege to give or withhold as she chooses. She may 
have some weakness of the hand, wrist, or arm, which 
makes a cordial grasp painful ; therefore, if she does not 
offer the hand it should not be set down to undue formality. 
Foreigners who are well bred rarely shake hands, and then 
only with intimate friends. When they wish to express 
especial deference, they touch the hand of the lady with 
their lips, instead of grasping it and pressing the rings 
into the flesh, until the tortured fingers ache with the pain. 
It is respectful homage, not love, that the kiss upon the 
hand denotes, and is much more frequently given by them 
to the aged than to the young. 

" What a pity the novel i On Dangerous Ground ? was 
ever written ; no man will dare to kiss a lady's hand again 
for fear it will lead to something further," said a fascinating 
Eve of the beau monde to an admirer at Newport. 

" Have no fear, madam • I have found nothing in the 
book to deter me from going as much further as you like," 
w 7 as the answ T er of this modern Adam. 

Returning to cards — a young lady who has a mother 



CALLS AND CARDS. 85 

does not need a separate visiting card daring her first winter 
in society. When she does use one, to be comme il faut, 
it should not bear the direction; such cards being appro- 
priated by members of the demi-monde. The street and 
the number always look better on the card of the husband 
than upon that of the wife. When necessary, it can be added 
in pencil on the cards of the wife or the daughter. Where 
there is no mother, the father's card is left with the card 
of his daughter, and his name appears with that of his 
daughter, on cards of invitation, as — 

Mr. and Miss Grosvenor 

At Home, 
Thursday, October 27th. 

8—11 

Dancing. 

If the above invitation be engraved, it can then be more 
formal, as— 

Mr. and Miss Grosvenor 

At Home, 

Thursday, October 27th, 

from eight to eleven o'clock. 

Dancing. K. S. V. P. 

Sometimes a near relative takes the father's place, and 
then her name appears in the invitation as the chaperon of 
the young girl, instead of the name of the father; but 
under no circumstances whatever is it good form for an 
invitation to go out in the name of the daughter alone. 

Numerals are permissible in dates, hours, and street 
numbers. The two former are always engraved when the 
uniformity of the lines require it. No abbreviations of 
names are sanctioned, but are permitted in the months, 
when the space requires it. Stationers, from long experi- 
ence, should be able to advise in such matters. 

It is so generally understood that an " At Home " in- 



8fi SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

vitation requires no answer, that many still use the 
R. S. V. P. in the right-hand corner of a card, like the 
above. Here it may be repeated that all cards of invita- 
tion, excepting those for kettle-drums, require answers. A 
kettle-drum signifies a light entertainment, to which ladies 
and gentlemen can come and go in calling costume, not 
generally remaining over the half hour allotted for the ex- 
treme length of a morning call. Of course such an invita- 
tion does not absolutely require any answer, nor any cards 
left afterwards, by those who are present. Those who are 
the most punctilious in the observance of social rules send 
an informal regret when they know positively that they 
cannot be present. 

To go back to calls, touching upon a few additional rules: 
it is the custom in America, as in England, for residents to 
call on the stranger. On the continent in Europe it is the 
newly arrived who call first on those whom they have 
known residing abroad. 

When it becomes a question as to which shall call first, 
between old residents, the elder should take the initiatory. 
Ladies sometimes say to each other, after having been in 
the habit of meeting for years without exchanging visits, 
"I hope you will come and see me," and often the 
answer is made, " Oh, you must come and see me first." 
One moment of reflection would prevent a lady from 
making that answer, unless she were much the elder of 
the two, when she could with propriety give that as the 
reason. The lady who extends the invitation makes the 
first advance, and the one who receives it should at least 
say, " I thank you — you are very kind," even if she lias 
no intention of availing herself of it. A lady in the fash- 
ionable circles of our largest metropolis once boasted that 
she had never made a first visit. She probably was not 
aware that in the opinion of those conversant with the duties 



CALLS AND CARDS. 87 

of her position she stamped herself as being just as under- 
bred as if she had announced that she did not wait for any- 
one to call upon her. No lady, surely, is of so little import- 
ance in the circle in which she moves as never to be placed 
in circumstances where a first call is requisite from her; 
nor does any one in our land so nearly approach the posi- 
tion of a reigning monarch as to decree that all, irrespec- 
tive of age or priority of residence, should make the first 
call upon her. 

In an event of exchange of calls between two ladies 
without meeting, who are not known to each other by sight, 
they should upon the first opportunity make themselves 
known to each other. The younger should seek the elder, 
or the one who has been the recipient of the first attention 
should introduce herself, or seek an introduction; but 
women of the world do not stand upon ceremony in such 
points. The observance of these minor rules is seldom 
regarded excepting by the very formal, or by those who 
have no confidence in themselves. 

Ladies knowing each other by sight, bow, after an ex- 
change of cards. Cards of condolence left by mere acquain- 
tances must be returned by " mourning cards " before such 
callers feel at liberty to repeat their visits. Friends of 
course do not wait for cards, but continue their calls with- 
out regard to any ceremonious observances made for the 
protection of the bereaved. When the latter are ready to 
receive the calls of their acquaintances (instead of their 
cards), " mourning cards'* in envelopes, or otherwise, are 
returned to all who have left cards since the death which 
was the occasion of the calls of condolence. 

Both ladies and gentlemen in making the first calls of the 
season (in the autumn), should leave one card each at all the 
houses where they call, even-if they find the ladies receiving. 
The reason for this rule is evident; for where a lady receives 



88 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

many morning calls, it would be too great a tax upon her 
memory to oblige her to keep in mind what calls she has 
to return, or which of her calls have been returned ; and 
in making out lists for inviting informally, it is the card- 
stand very often that is first searched for bachelor's cards 
to meet the emergency. Young men should be careful to 
write their street and number on their cards. When an 
invitation to a house is received, for the first time, it is quite 
common for those so invited to show their appreciation of 
the courtesy by calling to leave cards the next day. This 
is optional, however, and depends entirely upon the cour- 
tesy of the one invited. When the claims of society were 
not so great as they are now (because of its now greatly 
increased numbers) it was considered a necessary civility 
to exchange calls before extending invitations to families 
that were not well known to each other. Cards are now 
inclosed in such invitations frequently to serve the purpose 
of a call, or, when there is a certain degree of acquaintance- 
ship between any of the members of the two families, and 
the invitation is for an informal gathering, even cards may 
be dispensed with under certain circumstances. 

After an invitation, cards must be left upon those who 
have sent it, whether it is accepted or not. It is not con- 
sidered civil to send such cards by servants. They must 
be left in person, and if it is desired to end the acquaint- 
ance, the cards can be left without inquiring whether the 
ladies are at home. Among cultivated people there can be 
no more question as to the duty of leaving cards after enter- 
tainments than there is as to the absolute necessity of 
replying promptly to invitations. When no cards are left, 
after a hospitality extended, such a want of appreciation of 
the courtesy is manifested as to make it very disagreeable 
for those who have been trained to look upon such an omis- 
sion as a rudeness. 



CALLS AND CARDS. 89 

When only the family and the most intimate friends of 
a bride and bridegroom have been included in the invita- 
tions for the marriage, or where there has been no recep- 
tion after the marriage at church, the bridegroom often 
sends his bachelor card (inclosed in an envelope) to those 
of his acquaintances with whom he wishes to continue on 
visiting terms. They who receive a card should call upon 
the bride within ten days after she has taken possession 
of her new home. Some persons have received such a 
card as an intimation that the card was to end the ac- 
quaintance. This mistake shows the necessity of a bet- 
ter understanding of social customs. Untrained charac- 
ters are not willing to submit to rules. They even main- 
tain that good breeding is a gift and comes by nature, like 
poetry, never seeming to fancy that dukes, or earls, or 
u exclusive old families," have anything to contend with 
in the way of keeping out of sight those proclivities which 
Darwin maintains are inherited by all human beings from 
their four-footed ancestors, and which, when indulged in, 
make men clowns and boors and snobs, no matter what 
their rank in life. A man's happiness depends on his man- 
ners and his conduct; a disregard of observances reflects 
not only upon his own nature, but upon his early training. 
It is therefore incumbent upon parents to give their chil- 
dren right ideas on such subjects; that they may early 
understand that, whether their deficiencies arise from igno- 
rance or from carelessness, the effect of any display of them 
is to lower them in the opinion of those who are capable 
of judging of their culture. No false pride, therefore, 
should prevent even the most highly cultivated persons 
from acquainting themselves with the changing customs of 
the times. No sneers, no ridicule should deter them from 
making use of the knowledge that they acquire, not in- 
herit, as is supposed by the untrained and the unculti- 



90 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

vated. They cannot hope to change the natures of the 
rude, the manners of the ill bred, for a man's nature is es- 
tablished and his manners formed before he reaches the 
age of thirty ; but their lives can bear testimony to the 
truth of the lesson taught by Epictetus — that no rude- 
ness hurts the one upon whom it is thrust. It hurts the 
perpetrator only. Here comes in Scripture teaching again. 
Men cannot gather grapes from thorns nor figs from 
thistles. Where the law of love and forgiveness is not the 
law of life, there thorns and thistles grow, and deteriorate 
the spiritual and the moral nature ; but their baneful in- 
fluence cannot prevail in the hearts of those who strive to 
eradicate the " tares sown by the enemy " — tares that easily 
take root (when not watched) with that firm hold w T hich 
insures a crop of thorns and thistles for the harvest-time. 
Bad manners, vulgarity of nature, and bad morals flourish 
best together; w r eeds, thistles, and thorns they are that 
infest all communities. Happy are they who learn early 
in life, without too frequent and too severe lessons, that 
there are poisonous and stinging plants, which one must 
not stoop to gather or even touch, as well as that there are 
human beings whom, bad as it is to have as enemies, it 
would be still worse to have as friends. 

Some ladies have adopted the English custom of rising 
only when their visitors leave; others prefer the conti- 
nental custom of accompanying ladies as far as the draw- 
ing-room door. In either case they should not resume 
their seats until their visitors have left the room. Al- 
though it is customary to speak of calls as morning visits, 
and of callers as " visitors," it is not quite correct to do so 
when the duration of the call is kept within the prescribed 
bounds; but should a call be prolonged to an hour or 
two, it might then most appropriately be called a " visita- 
tion." To those who find the directions for callers not 



CALLS AND CARDS. 91 

sufficiently explicit, the subjoined customs are added : A 
gentleman must never look at his watch during a call, 
unless in doing so he pleads some engagement and asks to 
be excused. He ought to rise upon the entrance of ladies; 
but he does not offer seats to those entering, unless in his 
own house, or unless requested to do so by the hostess, and 
then he does not offer his own chair if others are available. 
A lady gives her hand to a gentleman, as well as to ladies, 
if she wishes to do so, but she does not shake his hand in 
return. A gentleman should not grasp a lady's hand too 
cordially, as it takes but a slight pressure to be painful 
when rings are worn. A fear of such a result often pre- 
vents a lady who is receiving from giving her hand. 
Young ladies should not offer their hands to men who 
are not relatives, unless under exceptional circumstances, 
such as after an absence of some weeks, or to especial 
friends. A gentleman rises when those ladies with whom 
he is talking rise to take their leave. Ladies calling do 
not rise, unless those who are leaving are friends older 
than themselves. One should be careful not to sit out two 
or three parties of callers without some motive for doing so. 
A bore is a person who does not know when you have had 
enough of his or her company. A call should not be less 
than fifteen minutes in duration. Choose a moment to 
leave when there is a lull in the conversation, and the 
hostess is not occupied with fresh arrivals. Then take 
leave of your hostess, bowing to those whom you know as 
you leave the room, not to each in turn, but let one bow 
include all. A bow never requires any inclination of the 
body. That style should be left to dancing-masters and to 
actors on the stage. 

Where it is the custom to summon a servant to open 
the door, the bell should be rung in good time, and persons 
on the eve of departure should be detained by the hostess 



92 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

in conversation until the servant appears in sight. If the 
gentleman of the house is present, he escorts ladies to the 
hall door, but should the weather be cold, they should 
never permit him to perform a footman's duty for them, 
for men have often taken severe colds from such expo- 
sure. Ladies should gently but firmly decline the prof- 
fered civility, and gentlemen should not insist against 
their wishes. Neither should ladies thoughtlessly keep 
each other standing in the draught of open doors, but as 
speedily as possible take their leave. "Good-bye" is the 
correct form for leave-taking, and not "good morning." 

After visitors leave, it is the duty of a hostess to dis- 
courage any ill-natured comments upon those who have 
taken their departure, giving people to understand that 
her roof is not a retreat for that scandal, gossip, and 
talebearing which civilized hospitality condemns, and which 
refined hospitality looks upon as vulgar. To be sarcas- 
tic, to ridicule, or to tattle, is as easy as it is ill bred. 
A Washington journalist says : " There is one consolation 
for persons who are made the objects of the shafts of envy, 
w r hich is, that in the estimation of those with whom alone 
they can do harm, they who cast them are commonly be- 
lieved to be the sneaks and liars they always are. No 
honorable man or virtuous woman can hear evil spoken of 
others in their absence without forming this opinion of 
the utterer." 

When a gentleman has called and not found the lady at 
home, it is civility upon the part of the lady to express 
her regret at not seeing him upon the occasion of their 
next meeting. He should, of course, reciprocate the regret, 
and not awkwardly reply : " Oh, it was of no consequence. 
It did not make any difference, I assure you." The lady 
may be fully aware of this, but it is not civil to tell her so. 

New Year's calls are made by gentlemen on New Year's 



CALLS AND CARDS. 



93 



day in morning dress. Dress coats and white ties are 
sometimes seen, but nowhere out of France is evening dress 
approved for " morning calls" on New Year's day or any 
other day. When admitted, no matter how many ladies 
there are in the family, only one card is given to the ser- 
vant, and this card not turned down. In France, cards 
are often sent by post on the first day of the year. An ex- 
cellent custom, which it would be well to introduce here. 

Formal calls are generally made twice a year ; but only 
once a year is binding, when no invitations have been re- 
ceived that require calls in return. 

A medium-sized card is in better taste than a very large 
one for married persons. Cards bearing the name of the 
husband alone are smaller. The cards of unmarried men 
should be very small. The engraving in simple writing 
is preferred, and without flourishes. Nothing in cards can 
look more commonplace than large printed letters, be the 
type what it may. Young men can dispense with the 
"Mr." before their name, if they like the European con- 
tinental custom, which is much imitated in England, 
though not approved by all. 

The names of young ladies are often engraved on their 
mother's cards : both in script. 



Mrs. Miller Jones. 
The Misses Jones. 



Some ladies have adopted the fashion of having the 
daughter's name on the same card with their own and 
their husband's. 



Mr. and Mrs. Jones. 
Miss Jones. 



01 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

This still further reduces the number of cards to be left 
at a house, and is a very sensible innovation. Glazed cards 
and note paper are quite out of fashion, as are cards and 
note paper with gilt edges. As the author of "Social 
Etiquette " says, the character of persons is frequently 
judged by the appearance of their cards, but with fashions 
constantly changing, it is wrong to judge a person from 
such a standpoint. One may use note paper with a high 
finish, because of a large supply on hand; or a card with 
German text, because of indifference in replacing an old 
plate with a new one. 

Still, it is too true that persons are often influenced 
in their opinion of an individual by just such trifles, 
and therefore young persons should endeavor to conform 
to the rules of society at its best, even in such small 
matters as the selection of their cards and their note 
paper. More license is given to elderly persons in all 
such matters. 

There is a class of people who consider it a mark of 
superiority to hold themselves in defiance to all rules of 
etiquette, who affect to despise it, and take pleasure in out- 
raging it ; but it must be admitted that however well edu- 
cated in the matter of books these people may be, however 
intelligent in other directions, yet they are not born among 
those having fine manners, and accustomed to the require- 
ments of society, were not reared in high breeding, and are 
really ignorant of what they so despise. It would seem to 
be only in accordance with the first principles of common 
sense that people should acquaint themselves with the re- 
quirements of etiquette, and examine their causes, before 
they sweep aside what many of the very great intellects of 
the world have thought it worth while to approve and 
accept. 

There is another class who, not having been instructed 



IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL LAWS. 95 

in traditionary social observances, laugh at rules which they 
are not familiar with, — rules, too, which the instincts of 
kind hearts ought to divine almost, but which out of mere 
thoughtlessness are too often disregarded even by the kind- 
hearted. 

Some writer has said : Prominent among the minor sins 
of major import is the sin of thoughtlessness. It retards 
action, chafes, irritates, and discourages actors, annuls 
effort and wastes power, in a word, clogs the wheels of 
healthful progress to a greater degree, we are persuaded, 
than stealing, or either of half a dozen other great sins, and 
yet it is often spoken of as only a sort of venial sin, a mis- 
fortune, or at most a failing. The descending torrent of 
the shower-bath braces and stimulates the system ; a forti- 
eth part of the quantity of the water, falling drop by drop 
upon the person, would drive a stout man mad. We guard 
by suitable clothing against the fury of the winter storm; 
it is the cloud of impalpable summer dust which blinds and 
suffocates us. Great misfortunes summon corresponding 
fortitude and endurance. Great sins work their own cure. 
Against great criminals we have the protection of the law. 
It is the small evil-doers, the faulty, the nuisances of society, 
against whom we have no protection. 

Excepting with those who possess broad minds, cosmo- 
politan ideas, and enlarged views of life, it is a human pro- 
pensity to think our own, in everything, the best there is. 
Bagehot says: "People, in all but the most favored times 
and places, are rooted to the places where they were born, 
think the thoughts of those places, can endure no other 
thoughts." These are the ones whose influence is the most 
pernicious if they happen to be placed in influential posi- 
tions. They are the deadlocks to the wheels of society, or 
its rocks and boulders which, although the good seed may 
fall upon in showers, will never furnish soil for fruit until 



96 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

they have been transformed from fossils into elements of 
growth. 

A journalist says: Neither the little burgh nor the great 
city should know any difference in the conduct of the indi- 
viduals composing its population. Allowing for the neces- 
sary variations in the tenor of daily life in the two places, 
there should be complete union regarding the proprieties; 
one code of behavior should cover all, and a person going 
from one place to the other should be utterly undistinguish- 
able by his conduct from those around him. If, indeed, 
every one took pains to be informed concerning the right 
and best in social intercourse and usage, and looked at the 
matter as one of real importance and not of frivolous tri- 
fling, rudeness and gaucherie would soon disappear from 
among us. In this connection another class of persons 
may be mentioned. The one comprising that large number 
who, having seen certain rules in books treating upon eti- 
quette, rely upon them, instead of upon those unwritten 
rules which have been handed down in families from gen- 
eration to generation, with only such changes as the chang- 
ing states of society require. Here books are prejudicial, 
because, instead of giving rules suited to the present cus- 
toms of society, they do little more than repeat the rules of 
a bygone age. 

Still another class of persons cite customs prevailing in 
the best society with which they are familiar, as the gen- 
eral customs of society at its best. No more effectual bar- 
rier to progress can be found than this class builds up. 
Nothing short of a revolution can demolish such barriers, 
and w r e have no Caesars nor Napoleons in our American 
society to ride over them, trampling them down on their 
way. For every item of the regulations of the best society 
there is a reason, and usually a compulsory one. Having 
been made intelligently, most of them can be rediscovered 



IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL LAWS. 97 

by intelligence, although for some of the finer distinctions 
experience may be necessary. Obedience to these social 
laws is what obedience to law is in political life, and the 
obligations which individuals feel in their observance is 
said to be binding in proportion to the fineness of their 
sense of honor and the keenness of their self-respect. 
Etiquette, says the same writer, is the sovereign ruler of 
social pleasure ; its kingdom comprises not only manners, 
but the application of manners to events. The observance 
of its laws avoids confusion and maintains decorum, insur- 
ing to each individual due attention and respect. Its 
whole attention is to maintain the dignity of the individ- 
ual and the comfort of the community. Whatever enjoy- 
ment of our daily existence we have, so far as others are 
concerned, is possible only through our obedience to the 
laws of that etiquette which governs the whole machinery, 
and keeps every cog and wheel in place and at its own 
work, which prevents jostling, and carries all things along 
to their consummation. 

Surely the science of social intercourse and its regula- 
tions are worthy of being made a study, as the means 
through which people meet each other, maintaining har- 
mony and peace in their relations, and securing the great- 
est possible amount of pleasure and comfort to all. 

7 



98 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE, 



CHAPTER III. 

RECAPITULATED AND ADDED RULES, WITH COMMENTS — A 
SENSIBLE PROPOSITION— THE ETHICS OF HOSPITALITY — 
CADS, SLANDERERS, AND SCANDAL-MONGERS — INFLU- 
ENCE OF NEWSPAPERS — YOUNG AMERICA — ARISTIPPUS'S 
PHILOSOPHY. 

"Dans une societe Men organisee chacun doit concourir a I'agrement 
de tous; et c'est a ce point de vue que V etiquette d sa raison d'etre, sans 
elle il n'y aurait d'ordre nulle part : la foule ne serait plus quune 
cohue." — E. Muller. 

" Private scandal should never be received nor retailed willingly, 
for though the defamation of others may, for the present, gratify the 
malignity of our hearts, yet cool reflection will draw very disadvan- 
tageous conclusions from such a disposition. In scandal as in rob- 
bery the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief." — Lord Ches- 
terfeld. 

" "We ought not to speak slightly of others, or of their affairs, for, 
notwithstanding we may seem by that means to gain the most willing 
and ready attraction (from the envy which mankind usually conceive 
at the advantages and honors which are paid to others), yet every 
one will at length avjoid us, as they would a mischievous bull, for all 
men shun the acquaintance of people addicted to scandal, naturally 
supposing that what they say of others in their company they will 
say of them in the company of others." — Galateo. 

11 Gossip, pretending to have the eyes of an Argus, has all the blind- 
ness of a bat." — Ouida. 

The violation of some of the following simple rules 
renders one liable to be thought either haughty, ignorant, 
or unfriendly. 

" In addressing strangers, commence with * Madam 9 or 



RECAPITULATED AND ADDED RULES. 99 

' Sir.' After an interchange of letters ' Dear Sir ' or l Dear 
Madam ' is more courteous, unless you wish to restrain 
undue familiarity." 

" Conclude all formal letters as ' Yours truly/ or ' Very 
truly yours/ or i Most truly yours/ Writing to friends 
use, according to the degree of intimacy, i Sincerely yours/ 
1 Faithfully yours/ or ' Affectionately yours. ' " 

" Sign your full name when writing to a friend or equal, 
not initials with the surname." 

" An answer to a note should never be more formal than 
the note, unless intended as a check upon unwarranted 
familiarity in the mode of writing. 

"Letters of introduction should receive immediate at- 
tention. When left with a card, if there is a gentleman in 
the family, he calls upon the stranger the next day, unless 
some engagement prevents, when he should send his card 
with an invitation. If the letter introduces a gentleman to 
a lady, she writes a note of invitation in answer." 

" Always reply promptly to a letter or a note, no matter 
of what nature, and always pay the postage, taking special 
care that the stamp ycu use covers the weight. Acknowl- 
edge all attentions immediately, when possible, such as the 
sending of a present of game, flowers, books or pamphlets." 

" After stopping with a friend living in another city than 
your own, write at once after your return home. After 
visiting a friend at her country-seat, or after receiving an 
invitation to visit her, a call is due her upon her return to 
her town residence." This is one of those occasions upon 
which the call must be made promptly and in person, un- 
less you have a reason for wishing to discontinue the ac- 
quaintance, and even then it would be more civil to take 
another opportunity for dropping a friend who has wished 
to show you a civility, unless her character has been irre- 
trievably lost in the meantime. 



100 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

" In writing letters or notes, distinguish between the 
words 'come' and 'go.' A friend comes to your house, 
you go to hers. Examples : ' I will go to you.' ' Will 
you come to me?' " 

"Invitations from younger ladies to elder ones should 
invariably be preceded by a call." 

" Where visiting has ceased for years between families, 
as during a prolonged residence abroad, the first call is re- 
turned within the prescribed time for first calls, viz., from 
three days to one week." 

" All invitations should be answered as soon as received." 
The late Mr. McAllister, of Philadelphia, once said: 
" Only those who are in the habit of giving frequent en- 
tertainments can understand the importance of following 
closely in the footsteps of the best society abroad in the 
rigid observance of this rule." In addition to the greater 
convenience of the hostess, which the fulfilment of this rule 
confers, there is another reason why it should never be 
neglected, namely : those who violate it lay themselves open 
to the suspicion of intentional rudeness, when possibly 
thoughtlessness, or ignorance of the customs of the best 
society, has been the cause of the dereliction. 

" It is the duty of a gentleman who attends an enter- 
tainment to have himself presented to every member of 
the family whom he does not know ; if not possible upon 
the evening of the entertainment, upon the first occasion 
of meeting afterward." 

This rule is more than ever binding in reference to a 
daughter just entering society, for whom the entertainment 
is given, or for a son upon attaining his majority, or for a 
guest whom you are asked to meet. A man who was once 
reminded of a gross remissness of this description, replied: 
" We Patagonians don't run after any one." 

" After a dinner or an evening party, it is not enough 



RECAPITULATED AND ADDED RULES. 101 

simply to leave a card, without inquiring whether the 
ladies are at home." A call should then be made in person 
within one week. Those ladies who have not time to re- 
turn thanks for an extended hospitality, can leave their 
cards on any other day than that of a weekly reception, 
without asking for the family, with the probable result of 
their time not being overtaxed with invitations from the 
same source in future. 

Ladies who complain of not having time to fulfil their 
social duties to their superiors in age, should remember that 
what w T e wish very much to do we always find time to do. 

Where the lady who has entertained has no weekly re- 
ception day, it is not customary for her to receive during 
the days immediately following an entertainment. For this 
reason, those persons who really wish to be admitted are 
sometimes tardy in making the required call. 

" A lady once admitted into a house must be seen at any 
cost of inconvenience, but a well-trained servant soon 
learns to discriminate between those ladies who are calling 
merely to leave their cards and those who are really desirous 
of being admitted." 

Any hesitation upon the part of a servant as to whether 
the lady called upon is receiving, authorizes the leaving of 
cards instead of waiting to be ushered in, only to be shown 
out again, as sometimes happens ; and the same privilege 
extends to the servant, who, if the question is repeated : 
" Are you quite sure that the lady is receiving ?" is at liberty 
to present his salver for the cards, unless his mistress is in 
the drawing-room. The observance of these two rules pre- 
vents that tiresome and almost inexcusable delay which 
some ladies occasion by making their toilettes before de- 
scending to receive their guests, and which justifies a lady 
in leaving her card without entering, where she has re- 
peatedly encountered such an experience. 



102 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

In a society where this is the rule and not the exception, 
elderly ladies should be excused from making ceremonious 
calls upon those who are younger than themselves. Also, 
when a lady reaches that age which makes it no longer agree- 
able to her to accept invitations, though she still entertains, 
she should feel herself at liberty to return the calls of all 
but her superiors in age and station with invitations, or by 
cards left in person at the door, without the inquiry being 
made as to whether the lady is receiving. In the best so- 
ciety in America, as in the most exclusive circles abroad, 
it is, however, held binding in all but exceptional cases to 
make the inquiry. 

"It is not considered good form to send invitations to 
older persons until after the first call of the season has 
been made." 

" A gentleman, after having himself introduced to a 
lady who has consented to the introduction, is at liberty 
to call upon her, or to leave his card at her door. It should 
bear his direction, that she may be able to return, his atten- 
tion with an invitation, should it be in her power to do 
so." 

Members of clubs or societies entertaining do not leave 
cards after the entertainment. Only those to whom the 
invitation is extended out of the club. If not given at a 
private house, and no card inclosed, no call is binding. 

Gentlemen not having time to make morning calls can 
inclose their cards and send them by post. 

The " London World" has recently been agitating the 
subject of sending the cards of single gentlemen, recipients 
of invitations, by post, instead of delivering them by a 
footman, as is the custom now in London. The writer says: 

"Our modern practice of interchanging cards is scarcely 
to be explained on any rational theory of social intercourse. 
The duty of leaving cards at houses where a dance or din- 



INTERCHANGING CARDS. 103 

ner has been given or may be anticipated, falls as a serious 
tax on the time and strength of all classes, but especially 
of the carriageless portion of the community; and a griev- 
ance which was trifling when London distances were less 
enormous, calls for a remedy when, simply to deliver a card 
into the hands of a footman, may involve a pilgrimage 
from Prince's Gate to Portland Place, or from Bayswater 
to Westminster. No better remedy can be suggested than 
that which is the most obvious one, namely, the transmis- 
sion of cards to their destination through the post-office. 
This plan is, at least, preferable to the alternative plan 
commonly resorted to by single gentlemen of leaving their 
cards with a butler over night on trust to deliver them on 
the following afternoon. If it should be feared that in 
passing through the post-office cards would lose the senti- 
ment involved in them, it may be replied that they have 
long since lost any sentiment worth preserving. Originally 
they expressed, as they occasionally do now, a genuine re- 
gret at having failed to meet a friend ; but their existing 
use is an extension and abuse of their original intention, 
destitute of any real feeling of friendliness, and expressive 
of nothing beyond a cold conformity to the received canons 
of politeness. The accumulated ingenuity of generations 
has seriously complicated the primitive simplicity of card- 
leaving. The exact significance of a dog's-eared card, the 
fitting apportionment of cards in a family, are among the 
questions which belong to the vastes et vagues, or wild 
wasteland of unwritten etiquette ; and to expect any one 
to carry about with him a complete knowledge of card lore 
is as little reasonable as to expect a man to possess a port- 
able knowledge of the pedigrees of the Plantagenets." 

This is a sensible proposition, and it is to be hoped that 
our American gentlemen will not wait for the custom to 
be established in England before adopting it here. To 



104 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Philadelphia belongs the honor of introducing in America 
the English custom of sending answers to notes of invita- 
tion by post. Of course, answers to invitations for dinner, 
opera, or theatre parties, which require a reply the same 
day, cannot be trusted to the post where the delivery is 
not hourly, as in London ; but for invitations which do 
not require immediate answers, the post is thoroughly re- 
liable. It has become almost a necessity for ladies who 
entertain much to receive their answers in this way, other- 
wise they would be obliged to change their servants con- 
stantly, for nothing is so wearing to the patience of servants 
as to be called off from their daily work every three or four 
minutes — as when several hundred invitations have been 
issued — to answer the bell. Much more convenient is it 
also for the sender of the note to have it dropped in the 
nearest post-box, instead of sending the servant a mile or 
more to deliver it. The suggestion, made in an article in 
" Lippincott's Magazine," early in 1873, was at once acted 
upon by the members of the Philadelphia Saturday Club 
in sending out invitations for their weekly suppers. It has 
since found favor among the oldest and most highly culti- 
vated families in that city. 

Everything which tends to lighten the labors of those 
who entertain should be regarded; for very often houses 
are hospitably thrown open, not so much for selfish ends, 
as because it is a pleasure to fulfil one's social duties where 
the hostess is met by the same kind feeling which prompts 
her to the exertion of entertaining, and where her inten- 
tions are interpreted on the same broad basis of "peace 
and good-will towards all," which she desires to maintain. 

" One cannot serve God and mammon " is a quotation 
often made by persons who seem to forget that the best 
way of serving God is to serve the world by being of use in 
it. Those persons who are able to entertain, owe duties 



THE ETHICS OF HOSPITALITY. 105 

to society and to the community which are seldom realized 
to the extent that they ought to be. Not only is refined 
social intercourse encouraged, by those who aim at a high 
standard, in excluding the unrefined, but women who live by 
their needles are helped to maintain themselves in comfort, 
merchants are aided, the caterers, or dealers in provision, 
who supply the suppers, the florists, the musicians, all are 
helped; to say nothing of the enjoyment conferred upon the 
young for whose pleasure dances are given. Then, too, we 
all know how those who do not return their debts of hos- 
pitality in some way are looked upon. There is no civiliza- 
tion so high, nor no barbarism so low, that it does not count 
hospitality among the social virtues. It is so important a 
thing to the growth of the individual soul, and to keeping 
steady the balance of social economy, that we are not only 
bound to the practice of it, but to study and consider it in its 
moral relations, says a writer upon the ethics of hospitality. 
He tells us that in the countries of Europe hospitality has 
been reduced to a very complete system, which has, at the 
back of it all, certain fixed rules that both host and guest 
are bound to respect. Here, he justly says, we lose much 
of the good effect of hospitality by a careless disregard of 
mutual rights. There all is governed by certain social 
laws, which are as unvarying as the laws of the Medes and 
Persians. Until we adopt a similar code, he adds, we can- 
not have anything like a complete social system. It is 
possible that only those whose homes are social centres 
realize to the full extent the importance of these rules; 
otherwise we should not find such gross carelessness pre- 
vailing in their observance. As we have the right to ex- 
pect more from those whose education and position are the 
best, the neglect of social rules by the highly placed is more 
to their shame than is that of the badly educated; for if 
training is good for anything at all, it ought to be good all 



106 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

through. Good manners are not to be put on for state 
occasions, like fine clothes, but they should be an integral 
part of the nature, always there, like the shadow of the 
substance, the echo of the voice. The secret of the fine 
manner of the well bred, among the upper classes, resides 
in the dignified respect which they not only demand for 
themselves, but which they pay to others. 

A lady once said to an English nobleman : " Is it pos- 
sible that your men accept invitations to houses in London, 
and the next day, in the Park, cut the host or the hostess 
of the night before ?" He answered, " Yes, there are men 
who do it, but they are cads." To be a gentleman, and 
not a cad, requires that high degree of self-respect which 
is only equalled by a keen sense of the respect and estima- 
tion in which others have a right to be held. Self-respect 
will dictate propriety of deportment in every situation that 
can present itself, suggesting the due degree of familiarity 
with intimates, and the right bearing with strangers and 
toward inferiors. Haughtiness and reserve are not charac- 
teristics of the gentleman, but of the parvenu. The true 
gentleman can afford to forget his dignity : the imitator 
cannot. Silver shines brighter the more you use it; but 
electroplate must be tenderly used. A gentleman, while 
conscious of what is due to himself, does not forget what is 
due to others. He could not, without just cause, 'cut' the 
man or the woman in whose house he had broken bread, 
or whose roof had covered him, because in doing it he 
would lose that which he most values, namely, his self-re- 
spect, the most priceless possession that either a man or a 
woman can hold. 

Quite recently, an American lady living at a court that 
is more exclusive than that of St. James, was asked by one 
of the noblesse, " Are you going to the Blazers' ball ?" " I 
do not know them," was the answer. "Oh, that makes 



CADS, SLANDERERS, AND SCANDAL-MONGERS. 107 

no difference ; all that you have to do is to leave your cards, 
and straightway you will get an invitation back. They 
will feel honored by your going, and you need never know 
them afterwards/' " I could not accept an invitation to a 
house where I did not wish to know its inmates/ 7 answered 
the American ; and such must be the instinctive feeling of 
every true gentlewoman and gentleman. Self-respect has 
no finer method of expression than that of respect for 
others. If we could get it firmly implanted as an article 
of belief that disrespect is an unpardonable vulgarity, we 
should be quicker to mend our ways, and to pay the tribute 
we all claim for ourselves as our inalienable due from others, 
as their inherited and inalienable right also. 

Whoever receives an invitation is bound to receive it as 
a mark of kind feeling, and to remember that self-respect 
requires conformance to all conventional rules in connection 
with hospitalities extended, as well as that any neglect of 
such observances shows deficiency either in qualities of the 
heart or in early training. Even thoughtlessness comes, 
as we have seen, from inadequate instruction as to the du- 
ties of life. Some one has truly said that to be thoughtless 
is to be vulgar. Yet who, of all living men and women, 
has not been found guilty of some thoughtless act of rude- 
ness? But a lady, although betrayed by haste or unexpected 
events into a seeming rudeness, will never commit a pre- 
meditated one. This is one of the tests of ladyhood from 
its counterfeit, of sterling gold from base metal; and jusfe 
as truly as the false coin is sure to be detected in the end, 
so surely will the genuine coin hold its own value, despite 
the assertions of those who deny its worth. 

Society should maintain that esprit de corps which would 
lead its members to support those who are worthy of re- 
spect, never permitting their actions to be arraigned by the 
narrow-minded, sneered at by the envious, or distorted by 



108 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the tale-bearing detractor, without finding some words of 
defence or extenuation of the conduct of the accused one. 
There are few persons whose opinions are worth regarding 
that have not sufficient penetration to fathom the motives 
of the calumniator, and yet there are some credulous na- 
tures that believe all that they hear. A lady was once so 
unfortunate as to have column after column of fictitious 
events in Ler life given to the public as actual events. In 
after years one of the most sensible of her friends alluded 
to one of these incidents as an actual fact. The lady 
answered, "If you, who are my friend, think me capable 
of such conduct, what must my enemies think?" "Why 
I read it myself in a newspaper/' was the naive answer. 

If there is any man on earth that ought to be a man of 
honor, it is a man that has a newspaper and can say what 
he pleases, without any one having a chance to defend him- 
self, says some English writer, continuing, and when that 
man pretends to be a Christian, and to serve God, and shows 
his untruth only in very pious forms, is not such a man a 
strong argument as to the future punishment of the wicked? 

At last, however, even newspapers are awakening to a 
knowledge of the evil that they are doing in pandering to 
plebeian tastes. Says a journalist : " This age will hold its 
own for inveracity among all the ages of the past; but it bids 
fair to eclipse the ages of Tiberius and Nero in its reckless 
assaults upon reputation. That men should deliberately 
and day after day defame public men in the public prints 
has ceased to surprise anybody. Frequency blunts the 

edge of murder even But we cannot help thinking 

that this age of scandal will finally pass away, and be re- 
membered and referred to pretty much in the same fashion 
as the era of witchcraft is remembered and referred to." 
Most certainly, next to mothers, the public press is re- 
sponsible for this prevailing inveracity. It gives ere- 



CADS, SLANDERERS, AND SCANDAL -MONGERS. 109 

dence to and perpetuates the unspeakably mean utterances 
of the slanderer and the scandal-monger. A writer, in the 
"Washington Republican," says of this class of beings: It 
is their office to defame virtue and despoil worth, to feed 
on the failings of the good, and fatten on the follies of the 
weak. Vile themselves, without a sentiment of honor or 
decency, they cannot endure to see others respected for 
traits they do not possess, or beloved for conduct of which 
they are incapable. Hence they make the estate of purity 
the prey of their piracies and the object of their plunder. 
Nothing is so sacred as to deter them, and no eminence is 
beyond their attack. Is there a man who stands high in 
the estimation of the public by reason of the excellence of 
his character and the quality of his endowments, they rest 
not until they have smirched the one, and disparaged the 
other by the fiendish devices of innuendo and insinuation, 
which constitute the weapons of the guilty ambush they 
keep in perpetual reserve for those they dare not openly 
assail for fear of popular resentment. Lives there a woman 
whose fair fame transcends the plane of ordinary attain- 
ments, because of special attributes, accomplishments, and 
graces, all the precedents of successful calumny and false- 
hood are ransacked for suggestion of means to depose and 
humiliate her, without subjecting the authors of the de- 
traction to the punishment they deserve. 

So goes the world, one portion of its inhabitants striving 
to be worthy of the general esteem, and to achieve the high- 
est blessings of life for all, while the other portion strains 
every nerve to pull the aspiring down to the baser level of 
vulgar existence and vile enjoyments itself attains and en- 
joys. And unceasingly have the good in all ages labored to 
solve the problem of morals involved in human instincts 
and agencies, hoping ever and anon to arrive at such a 
knowledge of the subject as should enable them to lift up 



110 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the debased, and reclaim the fallen, and to estabUsh such 
associations and institutions among men as should ulti- 
mately remove class antagonism in so far as to admit of 
brethren dwelling together in unity, and to secure general 
peace and fellowship. But we fear that while man remains 
mortal, and therefore frail, this consummation so devoutly 
to be wished for will remain in abeyance, and the good 
with which philosophers and philanthropists would crown 
the happiness of the world will be reserved for the eternal 
possession. We have no such hope as that which animates 
the Utopian believer; and the great obstacle in the way of 
the realization is the spirit of envy which prompts the 
tongue of the slanderer. Jealousy is the disturber of the 
harmony of all interests, and unless, by the interposition of 
Providence, men are made better by supplemental inspira- 
tion, it will continue to tear down as fast as love and labor 
shall build up ; and the purposes and pleasures of the good 
must be forever marred by the will and wickedness of the 
bad. Forever must virtue suffer from the whispered inti- 
mations of vice, and honor bow before the imputations of 
shame. 

But if this esprit de corps, already spoken of, could be 
maintained in society, how much might be abated of the 
power exercised by evil natures, slanderous tongues, and 
thoughtless brains ! As long as the very kindness of heart 
which shapes the course of some members of society is 
made to confront them in some odious form, as long as 
there is so little of that charity that thinketh no evil, and 
so much of that credence of the vilest insinuations that it 
would seem only demons could breathe, it is as Utopian to 
look for any esprit de corps in society as to look for a 
change of character in the depraved, or for angelic natures 
in the human. 

In illustration of the odious construction which malevo- 



CADS, SLANDERERS, AND SCANDAL -MONGERS. Ill 

lence can put upon a hospitable act, an incident is given 
which the compiler vouches for as having occurred in a 
neighboring city. 

An invitation for a ball was sent by mistake to the 
house of a lady, the members of whose family were all 
strangers to the lady inviting, although the name was the 
same as that of the invited. The lady to whom the invi- 
tation was sent had no children; the lady who received it 
had nine sons and one daughter (as the story was told), 
who left their cards immediately upon the lady inviting. 
She was advised by a friend to send for her invitation, but 
refrained from doing so out of regard for the feelings of 
the young persons who had left the cards, and, instead, 
extended her invitation to the sister and one brother, her 
list being quite too large to add to it the eight remaining 
brothers. This lady's course was afterwards misrepresented, 
and she was held up publicly as having intruded herself 
upon a family whom she did not know and who did not 
wish to know her. 

The degree in which discourtesies are felt depends en- 
tirely upon the coarseness or the fineness of the moral fibre. 
The Sybarite complains of the crumpled roseleaf on his 
couch ; the woman who maintains in her household that 
observance of the courtesies of life which are too often re- 
served for the stranger or for company, can never learn to 
look upon rudenesses in any other light than as social bar- 
barities, though she may become perfectly indifferent to 
them. The author too often revels in them, we fear, as en- 
abling him to "point a moral and adorn a tale," as he 
would otherwise be incapable of doing, for it is impossible 
for writers who have had no experience in social inhumani- 
ties to invent them. 

" Write, if you must," said a gentleman, several years 



112 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

since, to an author, " but for heaven's sake leave out your 
illustrations." 

"An author cannot write without illustrations," was the 
answer. "Even our Lord had to use parables when he 
wished to instruct." 

" Yes, and if you want to be crucified, I know of no 
better way to attain your end. You are ignorant of human 
nature if you do not know that for every illustration there 
will be scores of persons who will think that they are each 
individually meant, and each will become your enemy." 

The author answered in the witty words of* another, 
placed in similar circumstances : " I imagine when the 
people were in the Deluge, they were under such showers 
and discharges that no one drop hurt them." 

"I'm used to running the gauntlet," said Tupper, one 
day to a friend, " and don't care a bit for slander, ridicule, 
or even libel. Let. them rave. No shuttlecock can fly 
aloft without battledores ; and I know well that all such 
only help success." 

There are others a^ain who have to bring in Christian 
principle to help them bear slander and misrepresentations, 
— sensitive to praise and to blame, — who, while they pity 
and forgive, suffer if they cannot make explanations to 
remove the odium thrown upon them by misrepresenta- 
tion and falsehood ; but no one can have an opportunity 
of explaining all such charges, even were it desirable to do 
so, so that those upon whom stigmas are unjustly affixed 
often have no resource but to bear them. It is better to 
try to forget the petty meannesses and trickeries of our kind 
in recalling the acts and words of noble men and women, 
which stand like wayside shrines all along the paths of 
some lives; for the noble attract each other, and the Scrips 
ture truth is always repeating itself that to him who hath 
shall be given. It becomes easy, in time, to look over the 



INFLUENCE OF NEWSPAPERS. 113 

remissness, if not the rudeness, of those who have had 
fewer opportunities of realizing how neglect of what are 
to them seemingly trifling observances, affects others who 
have been trained to regard them as defining the boundary 
line between the well bred and those who are not well bred. 
If we could know all the circumstances that go to make 
up the characters of the people around us, we would grow 
as merciful and as pitiful as the angels, it has been said. 

It is the mother upon whom rests the blame or the 
credit of the breeding of her child, for it lies in her power 
to change even its natural disposition, where desirable, by 
judicious training. 

They who are unable to feel pity instead of anger, who 
are unable to return good for evil, and to pass over rude- 
ness and remissness with Christian charity, who cannot 
console themselves for undeserved calumnies by the con- 
sciousness of the purity of their motives, can at least re- 
member that if they allow the experiences of life to breed 
in them a contempt for human nature, it will make their 
lives barren and stormful, while if they open their hearts 
to pity instead of to condemn, it may result in that calm 
and helpful action which brings about reforms. A still 
larger class, however, will find consolation in the known fact 
that names which lie upon the ground are not easily set on 
fire by the torch of envy, but that those quickly catch it 
which are raised up by fame, or wave to the breeze of pros- 
perity. Every one that passes is ready to give them a 
shake and a rip, for there are few either so busy or so idle 
as not to lend a hand at undoing. If you are not clad in 
an armor that will enable you to defy the assaults of envy, 
retire into private life, says another writer, who equally 
well understands human nature when not redeemed by 
grace. 

Thackeray touches more than once upon this especial 



114 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

phase of weakness in English society. In " Pendennis," he 
makes " Pen's " criticism of Lady Muifborough's book 
("in which it was difficult to say which was the worst, her 
French or her English") keenly relished by some of her ac- 
quaintances. To use Thackeray's own words : " Wen ham's 
bilious countenance was puckered up with malignant pleas- 
ure as he read the critique. Lady Muff borough had not 
asked him to her parties during the last year. Lord Fal- 
coner giggled and laughed with all his heart; Lord Muff- 
borough and he had been rivals ever since they began life." 

There are Wenhams and Falconers in all circles of so- 
ciety; but just as authors grow callous in time to the attacks 
of critics, so women in the gay world learn to accept the 
shafts of the ill natured as mere pin-pricks which leave no 
abiding effect, and never rise to explain. Society asks no 
explanations, and expects none, excepting where apologies 
must be made for gross rudenesses that cannot be passed 
over unnoticed. Like the patch over the worn place, they 
often draw attention to what might otherwise never have 
been noticed. 

Explanations are bad things, says the Rev. F. Robert- 
son. You best maintain your own dignity by not making 
any. Another writer, fully as sensible, touching upon ex- 
planations, says : " Never enter into explanations concerning 
those whom you do not invite when you entertain ; it is to 
give up completely your own rights. Every Englishman's 
home is his castle. If he gives up any of the ground on 
which it stands, he will be invaded." 

This is advice, however, which few people really need. 
They generally exercise full independence in such matters; 
although there are some who are deterred from entertain- 
ing because of the disposition to calumniate which those 
who entertain provoke in the uninvited. This state of 
things, together with the remissness of the young, has had 
its effect in substituting quite another class of entertain- 



INFLUENCE OF NEWSPAPERS. 115 

ments for balls and dancing parties, — namely, day recep- 
tions and kettle-drums. It is not out of place here to show 
how this has operated by an illustration. The wife of one 
of our most distinguished American gentlemen, and the 
wife of one of our ex-Cabinet ministers, in conversation 
with a third lady, acknowledged they had both ceased to 
give entertainments for young people, owing to the want 
of appreciation shown of the efforts of hostesses to con- 
tribute their quota to the social gayeties of their respective 
circles. " Xot unfrequently ," remarked one of these ladies, 
"I am passed on the street by some of these young girls, 
with a movement of the chin and eyelids which is intended 
to serve the purpose of a bow, but which serves only to 
show their breeding. The young men whom I have in- 
vited, at the request of some common friend, do not think 
it worth their while to recall themselves to my memory by 
bowing the next time they meet me, and the sons of some 
of my friends, instead of coming up to speak with me for a 
moment and pass on, when they meet me for the first time 
after having spent an evening at my house, avoid catching 
my eye even. Some young married people are almost as 
remiss, never approaching me to express the pleasure they 
had, or the regret they felt, as the case may be, and, con- 
sequently, Mr. Oldecole and I prefer to give dinners in- 
stead of balls, and to confine our invitations to persons who 
know what common civility requires." The second lady 
answered: "Dear me! you are much more exacting than 
I am. All that I asked, or even expected, was a prompt 
answer, and a card left at my door, by each of the guests 
whom I had invited; but when that became too much 
trouble for my young friends to do, it then became too 
much trouble for me to turn my house upside down for 
their pleasure. Xow I give kettle-drums, which require 
no answers, nor no cards left afterwards by those who 



116 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

come." These ladies spoke the thoughts of many others 
of the family Oldecole, who rebel too much against the re- 
missness of some of our untrained young people to permit 
that extent of hospitality which would be gladly shown if 
the manners of all young people were such as to exhibit 
any appreciation of courtesies extended to them. 

" I have given my last dance/ 7 said an old lady, whose 
delight it was to gather young people around her for the 
sake of witnessing the pleasure that it was in her power to 
give. " I cannot invite the civil, and leave out the uncivil, 
when I give a ball ; but I can do so when I give the class 
of entertainments that I shall confine myself to in future." 

Such a comment upon society reveals the fact that this 
age needs to be one of social reform. That reaction which 
has set itself in opposition to the rigid formalism of the 
past has brought with it a train of evils which has weak- 
ened morals as well as helped to destroy good manners, but 
we cannot hold this reaction altogether responsible for the 
evils complained of. They lie quite as much at the doors 
of mothers and teachers and editors of newspapers. 

The writer of an editorial, "Do American Women Con- 
verse Well," published in the " Philadelphia Evening Bul- 
letin," many years since, .stated that no man who had not 
travelled had seen a woman. The writer went much too 
far in making such a sweeping assertion, for we fancy that 
in his own «city he would not have had to travel very much 
out of his way to find whole households of them. The 
men and women who compose the best society of that 
city are noted for their punctilious observance of tradition- 
ary rules of etiquette, such as are found in no books, and 
which cannot well be inserted in any, and for that fine 
manner which is so impalpable a thing that there is no 
crucible in which it can be impounded, no scales, be they 
ever so fine, in which it can be weighed. The one glaring 



INFLUENCE OF NEWSPAPERS. 117 

fault of mixed society in that city is the gullibility which 
its members show in reference to gossip and slander. Still 
this credulity is not confined to them. Quite recently a 
talented correspondent of a New York paper has tran- 
scribed for her readers the following incident, seemingly 
with the expectation that it will be believed. If there are 
any who give it credence, it will not be among those who 
are acquainted with the decorum and formalities of court 
life, nor yet among any who have ever met the high-bred 
woman of whom the story is narrated. Empresses and 
queens are human, it is true, but they do not behave like 
fish women and hucksters when they have cause for offence. 
They do not show their resentment in vulgar forms as here 
narrated ; their weapons -are polished even when they are 
keen and deadly. 

"The Empress has just returned to Vienna from Eng- 
land, where she has been amusing herself since Christmas. 
It is said that her imperial majesty was quite offended by 
a remark of Queen Victoria. I can only repeat it as I 
heard it from the lips of a palace lady who ought to know. 
The Empress went to take lunch at Osborne House. The 
Queen received her in all kindness, of course, but in their 
conversation she expressed astonishment at the love evinced 
by the Empress for dogs, horses, and riding across country, 
instead of devoting herself more closely to domestic life 
and the duties and pleasures mothers and grandmothers 
are supposed to enjoy. The prettiest grandmamma in 
Europe was angry, arose, and saying, ' Each one to her 
taste/ left the most sensible grandmamma to eat her lunch 
alone. The English Queen is a model of decorum, the 
pink of propriety, but she should not stick pins in butter- 
flies ; no, no ; the Empress was made for sunshine and 
flowers, and may God give them to her/' 

But to return to the question, " Do American women 



113 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

converse well ?" Many of the women of culture in our 
cities are not to be excelled by any women in the world in 
the art of conversation. In point of purity and real moral 
elevation, the best society in America is possibly superior, 
and at any rate equal to that of the upper classes in Eng- 
land, writes an English author, adding, the American 
middle class is certainly more cultivated, more interested 
in study and reading and things appertaining to mental 
culture than the commercial class in England. The Phila- 
delphia editor, after further remarks concerning the com- 
parative merits of European and American women, con- 
tinues : "Our ladies" (?) (mothers he should have said) 
"are accountable for the tendency in our young men to 

rowdyism and blackguardism If we would save the 

manners and the morals of our country, our women must 
have a higher tone What we wish is to change in- 
sipid girls and rowdy young men into rational, intellectual 
human beings. "Will our readers help us?" 

Although this editor evidently held erroneous ideas as to 
our best society, his object was a commendable one. It re- 
quires no small amount of moral courage to enter this 
" broad field of missionary labor" as "a pioneer;" but he 
does not stand alone as he did then. Our journals, as well 
as those of England, are now teeming with articles calling 
attention to "the decay of fine manners" that characterizes 
this age. A London journalist, recently writing on this 
subject, takes the same ground that the Philadelphia editor 
took so many years ago. He says : — 

It is scarcely necessary to occupy ourselves with the 
demonstration that the manners of the community have, 
during the present century, undergone a serious change for 
the worse. Their deterioration is a matter of notoriety and 
universal comment, and the unanimity with which this 
conclusion is affirmed acquits us of the obligation of proving 



INFLUENCE OF NEWSPAPERS. 119 

it Assuming, then, that the prevalent opinion on 

the subject is a correct one, let us see if we cannot account 
more or less clearly for the fact it deplores. 

Wherein consist good manners? I think it will be 
found that the secret or essence of good manners, as of good- 
ness in all other things, consists in suitableness, or in other 
words of harmony. When we speak of harmony, we neces- 
sarily imply a relation between two things. AYe signify 
that the relation between them is what it should be ; that 
the just proportion between them has been observed; and 
that out of this justness of proportion, this relation as it 
should be, springs what is designated by the significant 
word propriety. 

What is manner ? Manner is the deportment of oue 
individual to another ; which is as much as to say, the out- 
ward and phenomenal relation of one individual to another. 
Xow, every person — if we make exception of monarchs — 
can stand toward other people in three distinct social rela- 
tions. You may be the superior of the person you are 
speaking to, you may be his equal, or you may be his 
inferior; and I venture to affirm that your manner will be 
good or bad according as it recognizes or fails to observe 
the fact in each case respectively. I am not addressing 
myself to those persons who avow themselves insensible to 
subtle distinctions, and whose only notion of distinction 
between one manner and another is that it is vulgar or the 
reverse, polite or the opposite. I address myself to those 
who make the complaint that fine manners have suffered 
decay, and who are alive to all the infinite shades and 
gradations of which a really fine manner is susceptible. 

And, firstly, as regards the deportment of a person of 
fine manners to his superior. In this there will be a stand- 
ing deference, but never a shade of servility ; and the in- 
clination of tone, gesture, and language will be as slight, 



120 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

as natural, as graceful, but as perceptible to an observant 
eye and ear as the movement say, of a weeping willow in 
a light breeze. Suppose that two persons are conversing, 
and a third enters. The third ought to be able to tell at 
once which is the superior, and which the inferior, sup- 
posing the distinction to exist, and though the distinction 
be by no means a strongly marked one. Ask him how he 
knows ; and he can no more tell you how, than one can say 
why one face is beautiful and another is not, or than a 
neuralgic subject can say, save by his own impressions, that 
there is brewing a thunder-storm. The superiority I speak 
of may be one either of rank, age, or acquired distinction; 
but a well-bred person, a person of fine manners, never fails 
to give it recognition. A man of thirty, who comports 
himself to a man of seventy as he would to a person of his 
own age, is wanting in this instinct, and is as much a clown 
as is one who addresses a woman with the familiarity he 
employs toward a man. What constitutes good manners 
in this case is the maintenance of a just proportion, in 
plainer language, of a proper distance, between the two 
people ; in other words, the preservation of harmony. The 
neglect of a just relation makes impropriety or discord. 

Quite as subtle but quite as certain a line will mark off 
the superior from the inferior ; though perhaps the distance 
is created rather by the inferior than by the superior, and 
by the obligation the latter feels himself under to accept 
the situation laid down by the other. Here again an ab- 
solute stranger ought to find quick indications of the rela- 
tive position of the two, though he might be sorely put to 
it to give an account of the faith which is in him. 

The relation of equal to equal might, at first sight, 
seem to be a much simpler matter. On the contrary, I 
take it to be considerably more complex. For there are 
more faults that can be committed in this last of the three 



INFLUENCE OF NEWSPAPERS. 121 

relations than in either of the other two. The only mis- 
take an inferior, deficient in fine manners, is likely to com- 
mit in dealing with his superior, is to act as though he were 
the latter's equal; and the only danger to which the su- 
perior is subject, in conversing with his inferior, is the 
danger of asserting, or over-asserting, his superiority, in- 
stead of leaving it to the other to establish the fact by 
insensibly conceding it. But your equal can obviously 
commit either blunder. He may be arrogant and pre- 
suming, or he may show himself apologetic, timid, and 
uneasy. Either blunder serves to introduce an element of 
awkwardness and discomfort into the conversation, and, if 
the blunder be one of large proportions, renders the situa- 
tion intolerable. You may have your bumptious cad, or 
your cringing cad. It is difficult to say which is the more 
insufferable. At last the horrible discrepancy between what 
you have a right to expect, and what as a fact you encoun- 
ter, becomes so trying, that it 'gives on your nerves/ like 
bells jangled and out of tune. The discord is excruciating. 
The fellow has violated the laws of harmony. He knows 
nothing about the just proportion or fitness of things. Suit- 
ableness is to him a word without a meaning, and his life 
is one long unconscious impropriety. 

It is this ignoring of distinction, this abolishment of 
perspective in the social future, this blurring over of the 
fine harmonies of individual color and character, that has 
wrought the widespread vulgarization of manners. Vul- 
gar familiarity is inconsistent with fine manners. A per- 
son of fine manners is never familiar with his superiors, 
even ostensibly; never familiar with his inferiors in real- 
ity, and not often familiar even with his equals. 

But, perhaps, one of the most lamentable if not the most 
marked feature in the decay of fine manners, is to be ob- 
served in the change which has come over the manner of 



122 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

men towards women, or let me say, for fear we should be 
misunderstood, of gentlemen towards ladies. We will not 
conjure a storm of remonstrance by presuming to decide 
who ' first began it.' But we need not be afraid to say 
that, even supposing it was men who first led the decline 
down the path of excessive familiarity, women have so af- 
fably followed their lead that it has become exceedingly 
difficult for a man to preserve with some women that dis- 
tance which every well-bred person feels, and every 
thoughtful person must grant, is indispensable to the main- 
tenance in society of the due relations of the sexes. When 
a woman playfully tells you you area ' pig/ and addresses 
you with exquisite humor, 'Oh, you beast!' it is difficult 
to observe towards her that fineness of manner which you 
imagined was her due. If she may call you by such af- 
fectionate names, what may you not call her in turn ? Why 
should you trouble yourself to be decorous in the presence 
of a person to whom decorum is apparently of so little 
moment? Why should you not swear, loll, expectorate — 
if you like, go to sleep ? Why should you hand her a chair 
if she wants one ? She probably tells you, * I can get it 
myself.' Why should you not take her at her word ? Why 
rise when she rises ? You are tired, or at any rate you 
find it inconvenient. It is a nuisance to have to put one's 
self about so for women ; and certainly when women cease 
to thank you for doing so, one of the motives for suffering 
inconvenience has passed away. This is no question of 
morals. I dare say women are as good as ever they were. 
I believe they are. But their manners are indisputably 
decaying. They no longer silently exact that deference 
from men which is every woman's natural right, and which 
no sagacious woman ever forfeits. She will not long re- 
ceive it, even if she hankers after it, from her ' pig ; and 
her 'beast.' The consequence is that men 'swagger' 



INFLUENCE OF NEWSPAPERS. 123 

in the presence of women to a degree that even the women 
we speak of find offensive. They have corrupted men's 
manners, and they complain of the corruption. Corrup- 
tio optimi pessima est ; and there is nothing so sad as lack 
of fine manners in a gentleman, except the lack of them in 
a lady. 

In the deference which every woman should exact and 
every man either instinctively or cheerfully concede, we 
may, perhaps, catch the indications of the answer to be 
made to a possible objection. It might be objected in these 
days that it is not agreeable, and is even humiliating, to 
have to recognize superiority in others, especially when the 
superiority does not rest upon virtue, but upon purely ar- 
tificial qualifications. But a recognition of something due 
to women, and equally to old age, which a man of fine feel- 
ing, no less than of fine manners, should feel, surely puts 
us upon the trace of a reply to this objection. Xo one 
feels humiliated by deferring to a woman, or to a person 
much older than himself. If it be answered that such def- 
erence is paid to their weakness, and is on that account not 
humiliating, we respond — waiving the extraordinary cyni- 
cism of the argument to which we reply — that in that case 
a weak man need not defer to a strong woman, and also 
that, as a matter of fact, many persons who are much older 
than one's self are likewise much stronger. Young men 
do not defer to their fathers solely out of consideration for 
their fathers' failing powers. It is a sense of propriety 
which leads them to be deferential to both parents alike, to 
the one who is weak and to the other who is strong. Ab- 
solutely artificial superiority, no doubt, is willingly recog- 
nized by no one • but while, as a rule, conventional superi- 
ority does represent some sort of real superiority, the truly 
wise man does not refuse to concede a slight shade of def- 
erence to superiority merely artificial > provided it is of the 



124 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

sort that is bound up with the general constitution and 
machinery of the body politic and social. 

There is yet another element in modern life which is 
radically hostile to the cultivation, or even the retention of 
fine manners. This is its extreme hurry and its constant 
bustle. Fine manners require calm grace; and calm grace 
is not easily preserved amid the hubbub, jostling, and 
anxiety of the existence of to-day. Fine manners require 
time; indeed, they take no note of time. ' A person of fine 
manners may himself always be punctual, but he can 
scarcely preserve his fine manners while laboring to compel 
other people to do so. Fine manners are absolutely in- 
compatible with fussiness. Fine manners take their time 
over everything. This is not to say that they are incon- 
sistent with exertion, or even with great energy. But the 
exertion must be equable; the energy must be uniform, not 
spasmodic or hysterical. 

Many excellent persons, not unnaturally displeased to 
find that such importance is attached to a quality which 
seems in no degree to partake of a moral character, labor 
to argue that the secret of gentlemanliness and fine man- 
ners is virtue, generosity, amiability, consideration for 
others. It seems to me that though the argument may 
j^rove that he Avho employs it has a noble enthusiasm for 
morality, he allows his worthy partiality to lead him into 
sophistry, or at least to lose sight of a true distinction, and 
one that goes to the root of the whole business. I do not 
think I should be guilty of exaggeration were I to affirm 
that some persons of the finest manners have been uni- 
formly and systematically selfish, and that it is possible to 
perform the most ungracious act in the most graceful man- 
ner conceivable. Fine manners are paper money, not ster- 
ling coin; but they are invaluable as currency, whether 
they be convertible or not into something more solid. But 



125 

surely the severest moralist would not deny that the most 
abandoned scoundrel may offer you a chair with the finest 
air of breeding, though he has just with equal grace de- 
prived some one else of it who stood infinitely more in need 
of it, while a model of virtue and self-sacrifice may hand 
it you with such awkwardness as to bruise your shins or 
tear vour dress, though he has been standing the whole 
night and is almost fainting from fatigue. This, no doubt, 
is an extreme though by no means an uncommon case, but 
it is a fortunate circumstance that the tradition of fine 
manners and the resolution not to part with them often 
compel a thoroughly selfish man to seem to do a generous 
thing, and in any case to be of use to his neighbor. The 
worst condition in which we can find ourselves is to be 
surrounded by people who have neither morals nor man- 
ners; who are at one and the same time thoroughly selfish 
and utterly ill-bred. Society had perhaps better take care 
lest it fall a victim to the double evil. 

A writer in "The Baltimore American," writing upon 
"The Art of Politeness," says of our youth : The sense of 
his own superiority, in which 'young America indulges, is 
apt to cause him to look down with lofty contempt on those 
old-fashioned ideas of courtesy and good breeding which 
our fathers bequeathed to us. There is but little now of 
that infusion into daily life of the law of kindness which 
was once so conspicuous. Good manners are the equity of 
benevolence, and in proportion as they decrease men be- 
come cold-hearted, suspicious, and uncharitable. True 
politeness seems to have given place to that imitation of it 
which leads us to veil our true sentiments under the guise 
of friendship, while at the same time we take every oppor- 
tunity of reviling each other to our neighbors. This love 
for discussing evil has had a demoralizing tendencv on the 
young, causing them to be cynical and to lose all faith in 



126 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

human virtue and goodness, at an age when the purest sen- 
timent should be allowed free scope, and when every emo- 
tion should move only in harmony with good. If more 
attention were paid to these little details, the way would 
be prepared for higher moral education, and men and 
women would become more tender and forgiving to hu- 
man weakness, and more implacable to those offences which 
are now condoned, so long as they do not offend the popu- 
lar idea of what constitutes ' gentility/ 

Even those who have been educated to pay but little atten- 
tion to the seemingly trivial observances which cultivated 
society uses for protecting the rights of all its members, ought 
to feel some interest in that philosophy of which Aristip- 
pus was professor at Syracuse, in the days of the famous 
King Dionysius, standing in favor with this king even 
higher than did Plato himself. The Greek meaning of 
philosophy is the love of wisdom ; and the polite philosophy 
which Aristippus professed was that sort of wisdom which 
teaches men to be at peace in themselves, and neither by 
their w T ords or behavior to disturb the peace of others. 
Certainly all those who have been subjected to rudenesses 
arising from the boorishness or bad breeding of others-, 
must admit that the tranquillity of our days depends as 
much on small things as on great. Some writer has said; 
It is want of attention, not capacity, which leaves us so 
many brutes. 

' Our follies, when displayed, ourselves affright; 
Few are so bad to bear the odious sight. 
Mankind, in herds, through force of custom stray, 
Mislead each other into error's way.' 

Those who feel most deeply the truth of the above quota- 
tion will not set themselves up as pedagogues to instruct 
others when they have occasion to speak or to write upon 
the subject of manners, but will rather, in the spirit of 'a 



FRENCH RULES. 127 

schoolfellow playing the master/ keep in mind that pre- 
cept of Seneca : Hccc aliis die, ut dam dicis, audias; ipse 
swibe, ut dam scripseris, legas; Speaking to others, what 
you dictate, hear; and learn yourself while teaching you 
appear. This is the spirit in which the compiler of these 
pages has executed her work. 

Observations from Muller's "Code des 

BlENSEANCES." 

Apres une soiree, un bal, il faut aussi, et dans la hnitaine, 
rend re une visite. Toutefois nous croyons pouvoir af- 
firmer qu'il est bon de laisser ecouler deux on trois jours 
entre la reception et la visite. 

II est ridicule d'enumerer ses qualites sur une carte de 
visite; une dame doit faire preceder son nom du titre de 
madame, et ne jamais mettre son adresse. 

II est admis qu'en beaucoup de circonstances l'envoi 
d'une carte tient lieu d'une visite personelle. Nous ne 
partageons pas eritierement cette opinion. 

On a pretendu que la carte, en cas de deuil, ne devait 
pas etre bordee en noir. Pourquoi ce qui est permis pour 
le papier a lettres, ne le serait-il pas ici? 

Nousnedironsqu'un mot des lettres anonymes. Celuiqui 
les ecrit est un lache, car il a generalement peur de nuire, 
et il se cache, pour accomplir son crime, comme le voleur 
de grand chemin qui s'aposte la nuit. 



128 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 



CHAPTER IV. 

BREAKFASTS — LUNCHES — LUNCHEONS — TEAS — KETTLE- 
DRUMS — CURE FOR GOSSIP — SOCIAL PROBLEMS — GOOD 
SOCIETY— BAD SOCIETY— WOMAN'S MISSION. 

Sydney Smith liked breakfast parties, because he said, no one was 
conceited before one o'clock in the day. — Manners of Modern Society. 

Lunch. — A slight repast between breakfast and dinner ; formerly 
the same as luncheon. Example: The passengers in the line-ships 
regularly have their lunch. 

Luncheon. — A portion of food taken at any time except at a regu- 
lar meal. Example : I sliced the luncheon from the barley loaf.— 
Webster's Dictionary. 

Since custom is the principal magistrate of human life, let men by 
all means endeavor to obtain good customs. — Lord Bacon. 

Whatever earnestness or strength of character women show in ful- 
filling their duties, may truly be said to be in spite of their education 
and of the influence of society. — Emily Shirreff. 

Social and moral reformation in the lowest classes, as in the highest, 
must begin with domestic life. 

Eating and drinking are, as we well know, an abso- 
lute necessity if we desire to keep life within us ; but we 
should remember if we wish for length of days that we 
must eat to live, and not live to eat. Seneca tells us that 
our appetite is dismissed with a small payment if we only 
give it what we owe it, and not what an ungoverned 
appetite craves. 

Breakfast is a charming meal when the heads of the 
household know how to make it so. Every year adds 



BREAKFASTS, LUNCHES, LUNCHEONS. 129 

to our adoption of foreign customs, where they are such 
as to please the eye or gratify the taste. There are few 
breakfast tables now where fruit does not form one of 
the courses for the family breakfast when the means 
permit ; and what more appetizing than to see each kind 
in its season, temptingly displayed in green leaves, on the 
breakfast table, with fresh rolls on a snowy napkin, 
golden butter, with the substantial dishes that Americans 
generally demand ? Flowers, too, be they ever so few, 
brighten and embellish the table ; but these must not be 
arranged formally, as for a dinner. They can be scat- 
tered about, according to the taste of the one who arranges 
the table, with here a Minton china figure of a girl hold- 
ing a basket of flowers, there a youth guiding a wheel- 
barrow laden down with rosebuds, while small crystal 
globes, with their tiny clusters of blossoms dotting the 
morning table-cloth with vivid hues, add much to the 
beauty of the decorations. 

Wedding breakfasts, and dejeuners a la fourchette, have 
all the form and ceremony of a dinner. 

At wedding breakfasts wines are served with cold 
game and poultry, chicken and lobster salad, salmon 
a la Mayonnaise, tongues, hams, potted meats, game 
pies, jellies, ices, cold sweets, and fruit. Of course, dishes 
vary with the seasons of the year. 

Luncheons are more frequently given than breakfasts 
in America as entertainments, but in either case the dishes 
are about the same, the principal point of difference being 
that tea and coffee are served at breakfasts, and wines at 
luncheon. 

Although custom has sanctioned a distinction between 
the words "lunch" and " luncheon," both are indiscrimi- 
nately used in speaking of the midday meal; while the 
use of the word luncheon is generally confined to enter- 

9 



ICO SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

tain merits given after the breakfast hour, and after the 
hour at which the family lunch is spread, at any time 
before the dinner hour. 

The differing meaning of the two words " lunch" and 
" luncheon/' shows that the author of " Modern Eti- 
quette " has made a mistake in giving the word "lunch- 
eon " as the right one to be used, and " lunch " as vulgar. 
One can use either word, remembering the difference in 
their meanings. The same writer instructs us not to say 
that we are going to "take tea" with a friend, but that 
we are going to " drink tea, " etc. We do not say that 
we are going to "eat" supper with Mrs. Blank, but we 
say that "I am going to take supper" with Mrs. Blank. 
The only authority that we have for this arbitrarily given 
rule, is from an anecdote told of Beau Brummell, who 
in reply to a courtezan, calling to him when passing her 
window, "Will you come and take tea with me to- 
night?" answered, "Madam, one can 'take' liberties, 
but one ' drinks tea. ' " 

It is not vulgar to say " take tea," nor is it at all out 
of the way to say "drink tea;" which leaves it optional 
to follow one's own preference. 

In England, one as frequently hears luncheon as lunch 
applied to the regular meal ; and both words are used for 
the luncheon which is prepared for members of the family 
going out to shoot, or to the races, cricket grounds, or 
whatever the destination may be. 

As the same word is used by the same persons in speak- 
ing of both meals, it may be that, in time, the true mean- 
ing of the word " luncheon " will give way before the 
need of a word to correspond to "dinner;" "to lunch" 
serving then the same relative meaning to "luncheon" 
that " to dine" does to "dinner." 

A sensible custom that prevails in some parts of Eng- 



131 



land ought to be introduced in our country, especially 
at places of summer resort, where the residents of cottages 
outnumber the occupants of the hotels, namely, where 
early dinners are the custom, and guests are invited, they 
are asked to lunch instead of to dine, which enables the 
men to come in morning dress ; and where is there a man 
to be found who does not rebel when he is obliged to ap- 
pear in broad daylight in evening dress? The luncheon 
is then a dinner in every particular so far as the dishes and 
thejvines, and the serving of them, are concerned. The 
ladies wear gowns, high in the neck and long sleeves, 
the gentlemen morning dress. Less ceremony and more 
enjoyment, possibly. 

When it is necessary to call in waiters to assist in 
serving either at breakfasts, luncheons, or dinners, which 
are served & la Itusse, the ordeal is a most trying one for 
the hostess. These are the cases where ignorance is bliss, 
and where it is folly to be wise ; but whatever the short- 
comings may be, whether the wines are poured in wrong 
succession, the salad appearing out of place, or any of 
those numerous originalities that undrilled waiters delight 
in, it is wiser for the hostess to make no attempts to rec- 
tify them. After providing the cook and the butler with 
a carefully written out menu, — that of the butler, including 
the wines against each course, — she has done all that she 
can do to insure their appearance in order; and, no matter 
what goes wrong, she must not seem to notice it, if at 
the cost of her self-possession. 

When ladies only are invited to a luncheon, the hostess 
leads the way, keeping the lady whom she wishes to 
honor on her right, without offering her arm, of course, 
followed by her guests, who seat themselves as they 
choose. When gentlemen are present, they follow the 
ladies in a body. Ladies in walking or carriage costume 



132 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

retain their bonnets when they choose, but the gloves are 
removed as at dinner. Gentlemen wear strict morning 
dress. 

At luncheons, where the guests are seated around the 
table, as many courses are frequently served as at din- 
ners, the chief differences consisting in fewer wines, and 
the bouillon being served in cups with saucers, instead of 
in soup plates. 

Menus are not necessary, but where the courses number 
from twelve to sixteen they ought to be provided, that 
the guests may choose the dishes they prefer. It would 
be still better to diminish the number, discouraging such 
parvenu prodigality. Bouillon, rissoles of sweetbread, 
filets of fish, cutlets with potatoes crisply fried (a la Sara- 
toga), quails, followed by sweets, fruit and coffee, com- 
prise sufficient variety for ordinary occasions. 

After an invitation to a formal breakfast or a luncheon, 
whether accepted or not, a call is as much de rigueur 
as after a dinner invitation. If the lady has a day, 
the call must be made in person, on that day, by the 
ladies who have been invited. Those gentlemen whose 
time is not at their disposal can call in the evening, or 
send their cards by post according to a proposed London 
innovation. The hospitality and evidence of kind feeling 
shown must be acknowledged in some way. 

It is said that nowhere are young men so remiss as in 
New York in the observance of their social duties. Much 
is to be said in extenuation of this remissness as long as 
ladies are so exacting as to require calls made in person 
by men engaged in business. Let the custom be fairly in- 
troduced of sending cards by post, and few will be found 
wanting in such an acknowledgment of their appreciation 
of attentions paid to them by ladies. 

A Northern lady residing in a Southern city who enter- 



TEAS. 133 

tains frequently, was asked whether the gentlemen of that 
city were remiss in reference to dropping a card after enter- 
tainments. She stated that daring a long residence there 
her invitation-book showed but five delinquents among 
the members of its best society. " Two of these, " she 
said, "were young physicians just starting in practice," 
and therefore excusable on account of the duties of their 
profession. One of the number had spent so much time 
in New York as to become demoralized, she laughingly 
said, and for the remaining two she could find no excuse 
whatever, as they were men of leisure. 

No calls are expected in America, as in England, after 
informal hospitalities extended on Sunday. All gather- 
ings on that day ought to be informal. Gentlemen wear 
morning dress. Sunday evening teas and suppers possess 
this advantage over those given on week-days. No dinner 
parties are given on Sunday, or, if given, are not considered 
good form in the best society. On the Continent, in 
Europe, Sunday is regarded as any other day. Dinner 
parties are given, and the opera-house is open. 

"In the evening, though you spend it alone with your 
family, wear a black dress suit; and if you have sons 
bring them up to do the same/' writes the Countess of 
E ; but that "sensible etiquette" which makes Sun- 
day the exception in many of the best families in England, 
should be observed here, as we are also a church-going 
people. 

TThat are called "high teas" in England, correspond to 
New England tea-parties. A white table-cloth is spread 
for high tea, with flowers and fruit in stands, cut-glass 
bowls of berries, with cream in glass jugs or quaint little 
silver pitchers ; cut-glass dishes, on stands of silver or 
silver gilt, filled with preserved fruits; hot rolls, muffins 
or waffles, and racks of toast. Broiled spring chickens or 



134 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

chicken croquettes, partridges, mushrooms, etc., are served 
in covered dishes. The tea and the coffee are poured by the 
hostess from one end of the table. The servants remain 
until they have passed the fruit; then they retire, leaving 
the privacy of the party undisturbed for the short chat 
that is customary after the conclusion of the meal before 
leaving the table. 

Five o'clock teas are growing in favor in America, hav- 
ing been introduced from England with kettle-drums. 
These are still more informal than kettle-drums. Invita- 
tions are generally issued on the lady's visiting-card, with 
the words written in the left-hand corner, 

" Five o'clock tea. 
Monday, March 8th." 

Or, if for a kettle-drum, 

" Kettle-drum. 
March 8th, 4-7.' 

If engraved, more formality is required. 

Numerals for dates are always admissible, and for hours 
also, on such cards. No answers are expected to these 
invitations, unless there is an .K. S. V. P. on the card. 
Those who are present leave cards or not as they choose. 
Those who are not able to attend call afterwards. Many 
send their cards the same day, in proof that the invitation 
is remembered and appreciated ; making the required call 
as soon after as is possible. Of course, if the lady invit- 
ing has a weekly reception-day, the call must be made on 
that day. By a recent innovation, as has been stated, 
cards can be sent by post when gentlemen have not time to 
attend nor to call after; and the sensible hostess expects no 
call in such a case. Until quite recently, it has been con- 
sidered wanting in due respect to inclose cards and send by 
messengers or by post. Now, it is considered permissible 



KETTLE-DRUMS. 135 

for old ladies, ladies in mourning, invalids, and men or 
women who are too much occupied to make ceremonious 
calls. 

The hostess receives her guests standing, aided by mem- 
bers of her family, or friends whose especial province it is 
to relieve her, that she may be free to welcome each new 
comer. 

There is generally a crowd at a kettle-drum or a day 
reception, notwithstanding few remain over the conven- 
tional half-hour allotted, unless there is music to tempt 
them. Hostesses should feel flattered when they stay 
longer. A table, set in the dining-room, is supplied with 
a coffee or chocolate equipage at one end, and a tea-service 
at the other. Dainty sandwiches, Spanish buns and cakes 
constitute all in the way of eatables that are offered to the 
guests ; but frozen coffee and claret punch are frequently 
seen, though this distinction, simple as it is, makes the 
entertainment a reception instead of a kettle-drum. 

At five o'clock teas, the tea equipage stands on a side- 
table, with a pitcher of milk for those who prefer it to tea; 
together with plates of thin sandwiches and of cake. The 
pouring of the tea is superintended by some member of the 
family, and the passing of the refreshments also, which is 
accomplished without the aid of servants, where the num- 
ber assembled is small. These duties are not very onerous, 
as the people who frequent kettle-drums and five o'clock 
teas, as a rule, care more for social intercourse than for eat- 
ing and drinking. 

Many people, whose homes would be charming social 
centres, are prevented from giving evening entertainments 
on account of the expense of the suppers. It is a mistake 
to fancy that suppers are essential to the success of an 
evening party. Some of the most brilliant gatherings, on 
a small scale, both in Europe and America, have been 



13(3 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

supperless ones. Let it once be understood that the society 
of those who go out for the sake of hot suppers is not 
wanted, and the rooms will be thinned out for the greater 
enjoyment of those who go from other motives. Intellec- 
tual persons will have that opportunity to enjoy conversa- 
tion which modern society seldom affords ; those who dance 
can enjoy that amusement, without the crush around them 
that so sadly interferes with their pleasure ; and those who 
like to look on, will be able to see without interfering with 
the dancers. A side-table or buffet, with fish-house punch, 
sandwiches, frozen coffee and frozen punch, hot bouillon, 
and one or two hot dishes, such as chicken croquettes and 
broiled oysters, provides ample refreshment for those whom 
dancing and talking have made hungry; and the replenish- 
ing from time to time, does entirely away with the dis- 
gusting sight that it is to see people crowding around a 
table, tier after tier, as regardless of civility to one another 
as of the fine glass and china they break. In Europe the 
suppers are generally cold, even for balls. Game already 
carved, and tied together with white satin ribbon, or ribbon 
the color of the game ; game pies, meat cakes, salads, hams, 
tongues, salmon, everything excepting the bouillon, is served 
cold. Ices and wines are passed, seltzer poured with 
champagne and handed with claret punch, sherry, and cups 
of sherbet, or other cold drinks. At small evening enter- 
tainments, some slight refreshment is handed every half 
hour; cakes and ices, various kinds of punch, biscuits, and 
coffee, and tea; but no suppers are served. If this custom 
were introduced in our cities, persons who are congenial 
would be more apt to find one another than now, when 
those who go to eat and those who go for pleasures of social 
intercourse are all thrown together in one grand crush, con- 
tinuing their dissipation into the small hours of the morn- 
ing, regardless of the hours of sleep requisite for health. 



SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 137 

If, as has already been quoted, this is the age of social 
reforms, may we not hope for a reform in the mode of en- 
tertaining which will regard the health of our young people. 
As our men are a " nation of business men," let us have 
our social life better suited to their interests, than is the 
introducing of customs that are adapted only to London 
high life; and then we shall see fewer jaded faces in our 
counting-houses as well as in our ball-rooms, fewer youths 
sinking into declines before the period of youth is ended. 
Sooner or later every human being learns that a life de- 
voted wholly to pleasure is a worthless life ; but pleasure 
in a moderate degree is as essential to the physical and 
mental health of the individual as some occupation is. 
Bagehot tells us that business interests the whole mind, 
the aggregate nature of man, more continuously and more 
deeply than pleasure. But it does not look as if it does. 
It is difficult to convince a young man, who can have the 
best of pleasure, that it will. Like Hercules, he may 
choose virtue, but hardly Hercules would choose business. 
With all due deference to the opinion of Mr. Bagehot, it 
still seems that he would have better stated the case, had 
he said that only when a man has chosen business, or some 
profession that occupies the greater part of his time, can 
he have that full enjoyment of pleasure of which he is 
capable; and not that business is always in itself more 
agreeable than pleasure ; but that business prevents that 
weariness which conies to those who live only for self, and 
enhances their enjoyment of leisure, giving that keen zest 
to amusement which renews a man's youth within him. 

If our men of leisure devoted as much time to out- 
door amusements as the English do, there would not be 
the same need that there is now for wealthy young men to 
embark in trade. The majority of American men must 
be business men, and our social laws should be made to 



138 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

suit the convenience of the majority, instead of conforming 
them to the wishes of the drones in our hives of workers. 
Let our women hold right ideas about business, and in 
another generation idle men will disappear. 

" Les hommes seront toujours ce quHlplaira auxfemmes. Si 
vous voulez qu'ils deviennent grands et vertueux, apprenez aux 
femmes ce que c'est que grandeur et vertu." Napoleon went 
so far as to say, " The future destiny of a child is always 
the work of its mother," and however many there may be 
who will not willingly admit the truth of this statement, 
no one will dispute that mothers are held responsible for 
the manners of their children. Admitting that this is so, 
and agreeing with Locke when he says that, in nine cases 
out of ten, a man is what his education has made him, 
what a comment is the conduct of the idle and the ill-bred 
upon the training they have received in the home-circle; 
and what responsibilities lie in the hands of mothers to 
educate their children for lives of usefulness by giving 
them true ideas of life, and early impressing upon their 
minds the great truth that idle lives are pestilential lives! 
If manners are the reflex of the mind, good manners may 
be said to be the fruits of good training and a refined nature 
combined. 

Among the most trustworthy tests of good home training 
is placed that of table manners; and no individual can hope 
to acquire and to keep them who knows any difference in 
them when in the privacy of the family circle, than when 
in company. The properly-trained youth does not annoy 
those next to whom he sits by fidgeting in his chair, mov- 
ing his feet, playing with his bread, or with any of the 
table equipage. Neither does he chew his food with his 
mouth open, talk with it in his mouth, or make any of 
those noises in eating which are the characteristics of vul- 
garity. His food is not conveyed in too large or too small 



GOOD SOCIETY. 139 

portions to his mouth ; he neither holds his head as erect 
as if he had swallowed a ramrod, nor does he bury his face 
in his plate. He handles his knife and fork properly, and 
not "overhand," as a clown would; he removes them from 
the plate, as soon as it is placed before him, and he crosses 
them side by side when he has finished, and not before, as 
this is the signal which a well-drilled butler observes for 
removing the plate. He does not leave his coffee-spoon or 
tea-spoon in his cup. He avoids using his handkerchief 
unnecessarily, or disgusting those who are eating by trum- 
pet-like performances w T ith it. He does not converse in a 
loud tone, nor indulge in uproarious laughter. If he 
breaks an article he is not profuse in his apologies, but 
shows his regret in his face and in his manner rather than 
in words. Some writer has said : "As it is ill-mannered 
to express too much regret, so it is the essence of rudeness 
not to make any apology." Tittlebat Titmouse, when he 
broke a glass dish, assured his hostess that he would re- 
place it with the best in London. This was rather too 
practical a form of showing his sincerity. 

The well-bred youth breaks his bread instead of cutting 
it, taking care not to crumble it in a slovenly way ; he 
takes his wine holding his glass by the stem, and never 
drains it. He does not take wine that he does not want, 
because he is too timid to refuse, nor does he hesitate to 
pass any course of which he does not wish to partake, in- 
stead of playing with it as a writer on table-etiquette ad- 
vises. Pie swallows his food before he leaves the table, 
and sees no occasion for astonishment because eating in the 
street is forbidden. All the details of good breeding are 
as familiar to him as his alphabet, and he has been taught 
to think that attention to details in all things is the true 
sign of a great mind, and that he who can, in necessity, 
consider the smallest, can also compass the largest subjects. 



140 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Life is made up of details. The strong mind can afford 
to descend to them; it is only the weak mind that fears to 
be narrowed by them. The man who really loves beauty 
will cultivate it in the smallest thing: around him. The 
study of art, rightly undertaken, is the study of God, and 
it is by cultivating the beautiful that we approach heaven. 
Every man should cultivate good manners, both for his 
own sake and for the sake of those around him. 

How much more so a woman, one of whose missions is 
to make life less burdensome to man, to soothe and com- 
fort him, to raise him from his petty cares to happier 
thoughts, to purer imaginings, towards heaven itself. 

Certainly, a man may have a spotless reputation, a good 
education, and good breeding, without being either good 
in reality, or a Christian. But, as far as its jurisdiction 
extends, good society can compel you, if not to be a Chris- 
tian, at least to act like one. The difference between the 
laws of God and the laws of men, is that the former ad- 
dress the heart from which the acts proceed ; the latter 
determine the acts without regard to the heart. The one 
waters the root, the other the branches. 

The laws of society are framed by the unanimous con- 
sent of men, and, in all essential points, they differ very 
little all over the world. The considerations which dic- 
tate them are reducible to the same law, and this law 
proves to be the fundamental one of Christian doctrine. 
Thus, what the heathen arrives at only by laws framed 
for the custom of society, we possess at once in virtue 
of our religion. And it is a great glory for a Chris- 
tian to be able to say, that all refinement and all civiliza- 
tion lead men — as far as their conversation is concerned — 
to the practice of Christianity. It is a great satisfaction 
to feel that Christianity is eminently the religion of civil- 
ization and society. The great law of Christianity which 



GOOD SOCIETY. 141 

inculcates brotherly love and self-denial, finds its counter- 
part in the first law of politeness — to be agreeable to every- 
body, even at the expense of one's own comfort. Peace is 
the object of Christian laws; harmony that of social ob- 
servances. Self-denial is the exercise of the Christian; 
forgetfulness of self that of the well-bred. Trust in one 
another unites Christian communities; confidence in the 
good intentions of our neighbors is that which makes 
society possible. Pride, selfishness, ill-temper, are alike 
opposed to Christianity and to good-breeding. The one 
bids us make the most of God's gifts and improve our 
talents; the other will not admit us into its precincts till 
we have done so by education. And to go a step farther : 
as a Christian church excludes sinners and unbelievers 
from its ranks, so really good society excludes from its 
social gatherings the openly immoral, and those who do 
not subscribe to the laws and observances that regulate the 
intercourse of the well-bred. The arbitrary rules which 
it imposes on its members, and which continually restrict 
them in their actions, in telling them how they must eat 
and drink, and dress, and walk, and talk, and so on, all 
tend to one end, the preservation of harmony, and the 
prevention of one person from usurping the rights, or in- 
truding on the province of another. If it regulates your 
dress, it is that harmony may be preserved in all. [Those 
Americans who went to the morning reception that Mr. 
Pierrepont recently gave in London for General Grant, in 
"swallow-tail" coats and white cravats, must have wished 
they had been trained to know that there is as much dis- 
tinction between morning and evening dress for gentle- 
men as for ladies.] If these laws regulate the tone of your 
speech, and pronounce you vulgar if you talk in a loud 
voice, it is because people have nerves and sensibilities 
which are grated upon by harsh tones. 



1 1:2 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

In short, the more truly religious a man is, the more polite 
he will spontaneously become, and that, too, in every rank of 
life, for true religion teaches him to forget himself, to love 
his neighbor, and to be kindly even to his enemy; and the 
appearance of so being and doing is what good society de- 
mands as good manners. High moral character, a polished 
education, a perfect command of temper, delicate feeling, 
good habits, and a good bearing, are the indispensable 
requisites for good society. These constitute good breeding, 
and produce good manners. Wit, accomplishments, and 
social talents are great advantages, though not absolutely 
necessary. On the other hand, birth is often lost sight of; 
while wealth, rank, and distinction, so far from being de- 
sirable, must be carefully handled not to be positively ob- 
jectionable. 

The best definition ever given of good society is : the 
meeting on a footing of equality, and for the purpose of 
mutual entertainment, of men or women, or of men and 
women together, of good character, good education and 
good breeding. A feeling of perfect equality is necessary 
to the ease of society; and so well is this exemplified in 
well-bred circles abroad, that men belonging to the old 
nobility, possessing the advantages of generations of trans- 
mitted culture, will, as a rule, be found to be more affable 
and more genial than are the sons of the newly-made aris- 
tocracy. It is only the new people, here and there, who 
are climbing up into notice, who are pretentious, and 
fancy they can make themselves of importance by being 
rude or insolent; whereas all rudeness, all insolence, shows 
such a lack of conscience as regards the rights of others, 
such a lack of training as to the binding obligations of the 
well-bred, that it proclaims unmistakably the imperfect 
culture and real vulgarity that is endeavoring to masquer- 
ade as elegance. No one is entitled to respect who fails 



GOOD SOCIETY. 143 

in respect toward others. Let those who meet with 
rudeness take no notice of it. Above all, do nothing from 
revenge ; and they will be able to console themselves with 
the thought of their own superiority. 

" What kind of a country is America?" said a young 
diplomat just going over to the United States to an older 
one returning home. 

"It is a country where every one who chooses can 
tread upon your toes ; but then they give you the same 
privilege, only you are too well bred to avail yourself of 
it/' was the answer. 

Certainly the well bred, of all others, should be able to 
bear slights and rudenesses with fortitude. By so doing, 
they give testimony to the value of early training, evi- 
dence their own superiority, and set an example that 
will not be lost upon those who are witnesses. 

There are some things that all varieties of snobs do in 
common, or neglect to do in common, and one of them is, 
that when they are in the company of those whom they 
burn incense before, they are given to ignoring their 
equals. Belgravia and May fair stand on so permanent a 
foundation, that they can afford to recognize all whom 
they know, while Tyburnia, touching upon Belgravia, 
ignores St. Pancras for the time being. The true Bel- 
gravia is always a law unto itself, and stands in no fear 
of what Tyburnia, St. Pancras, or St. John's Wood says 
of it. The English have the reputation, both in America 
and on the continent of Europe, of being a race of "toa- 
dies." If it has happened to any reader of these pages to 
see in a London drawing-room, the hostess — some Lady 
Leo Hunter perhaps — upon the arrival of a duchess, ig- 
nore the presence of all her other guests, devoting herself 
to the duchess, such a one may agree to this so far as to 
admit that there are toadies in every grade of society 



144: SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

where the English language is spoken. The sham aris- 
tocracy indulge in mushroom-manners. Our true aristoc- 
racy indulge their admiration for genius, talent, courage, 
perseverance, and all heroic qualities, but they never bow 
before titles simply because of the titles. They extend 
the hands of fellowship to those who have merited recog- 
nition, without asking permission of one another. Neither 
wealth nor position, nor titles can secure such cordial re- 
ception as can those possessing merit, talent, or genius, 
who find themselves within the charmed circle. 

Exclusiveness is voted to be bad form in good society. 
Politeness, cold and distant, if you like it, can cost you 
nothing, and is never taken to mean friendship. In 
short, courtesy and peace are the rules of good society, 
as of Christianity ; and its denizens can, and do, throw 
aside the most bitter enmities when meeting on the neu- 
tral ground of a friend's house. Two people sitting next 
each other, with no one to talk to, would be thought ill 
bred, as well as ridiculous, if they waited for a formal 
introduction. Your host's friends should be for the time 
your friends. If you and they are good enough for him 
to invite, you and they are good enough for one another to 
know. 

In England, as in America, the distinguishing mark of 
the best society, as compared with that of the Continent, 
is the respect for moral character. No rank, no wealth, 
no celebrity, will induce a virtuous, well-bred English 
woman to admit to her drawing-room a man or woman 
w T hose character is known to be bad. Good society shuts 
its doors, once and forever, on the woman who has once 
fallen, and on the man who has lost his honor. It is a 
severe censor, pitiless and remorseless. Perhaps this is 
the only case in which the best society is antagonistic to 
Christianity; but, in extenuation, it must be remembered 



GOOD SOCIETY. 145 

that there is no court in which to try those who sin 
against it. Society itself is the court in which are judged 
those many offences which the law cannot reach, and this 
inclemency of the world, this exile for life which it pro- 
nounces, must be regarded as one of the chief deterrents 
against certain sins. There is little or no means of pun- 
ishing the seducer, the cheat, the habitual drunkard and 
gambler ; and men and women who indulge in illicit 
pleasures, must accept this one verdict of perpetual expul- 
sion pronounced by good society. Sometimes it is given 
without a fair trial, on the report of a slanderer; but 
society is forced to judge by common report, and though 
it may often judge wrongly, it generally errs on the safe 
side. What society wants is some check on the slander 
and calumny which mislead its judgment, — to hold gossip 
and scandal as a sin, as it is already held, bad form ; to 
receive with greater caution the stories of envious women 
and the tales of the club room. How often the fair fame 
of a virtuous girl has been tarnished by the man she has 
rejected ; how many an Iago lives and thrives in society at 
the present day ; how many a young man is defamed by 
an envious rival ; how many a woman, whose social suc- 
cess has been brilliant, is misrepresented and maligned by 
those who hate the excellence they cannot reach. As 
cats, in pursuit of a mouse, do not look up though an 
elephant pass by, so there are many people so busily 
employed in mousing for defects that they let high and 
beautiful qualities escape them in their search for what is 
more congenial to their natures, says one of our most 
gifted writers. 

These things make many bitter to the world, but as 
there is no remedy, they must be endured silently. In 
the meantime, good society discountenances gossip, and 
that is all that it can do for the present. 

10 



146 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Dr. Holland tells us that the cure for gossip is culture. 
He says there is a great deal of gossip that has no malig- 
nity in it. Good-natured people often talk about their 
neighbors because they have nothing else to talk about. 
As we write (he continues), there comes to us a picture of 
a family of young ladies. We have seen them at home, 
we have met them in galleries of art, we have caught 
glimpses of them going from a bookstore, or a library, with 
a fresh volume in their hands When we meet them they 
are full of what they have seen and read. They are brim- 
ming with questions. One topic of conversation is dropped 
only to give place to another in which they are interested. 
We have left them, after a delightful hour, stimulated and 
refreshed; and during the whole hour not a neighbor's 
garment was soiled by so much as a touch. They had 
something to talk about. They knew something, and 
wanted to know more. They could listen as well as they 
could talk. To make a neighbor a topic of conversation 
would have seemed an impertinence to them, and they had 
no temptation to do so, because " the doings and belong- 
ings" of a neighbor could not afford them the interest 
that subjects did, which grew out of their knowledge and 
their culture. And this tells the whole story. The con- 
firmed gossip among women, and the tattler among men, 
is either malicious or uncultivated. The one variety needs 
a change of heart, and the other a change of culture. 
Gossip and tale-bearing are always a personal confession 
either of malice or imbecility; the young should not only 
shun it, but, by the most thorough culture, relieve them- 
selves from all temptation to indulge in it. Those who 
listen to their tales, if students of human nature, divine 
the malice that prompts it, or the want of culture that 
breeds it, and do not allow themselves to be influenced by 
it ; for, as has been well said, since the evil which we do 



GOOD SOCIETY. 147 

docs not draw upon ns so many persecutions and so much 
hatred as our good qualities, so the keenest abuse of our 
enemies does not hurt us so much in the estimation of the 
discerning as the judicious praise of friends. 

" I was astonished," said one friend to another, " to 
hear one of your summer guests, under your own roof, 
retailing some bit of frivolous gossip about you. How- 
ever, all my astonishment was scattered to the winds when 
I made the acquaintance of her mother, and was regaled 
with narratives of neighbors, friends and acquaintances, 
in such a way as to reveal what kind of a school the girl 
had been brought up in." 

This is the manner in which the discerning are impressed 
by gossip. Even those persons that agree with the clever 
woman who said, " I do not wish to have any one do any- 
thing naughty for my amusement ; but if any one does do 
anything, I want to hear all about it," never fail to re- 
member whether the retailer has violated other rules of 
good-breeding than the one which discountenances tattling; 
for there are circumstances under which the repeatal of any 
bit of gossip afloat reflects far more discredit upon the re- 
tailer than its mention, under other circumstances, could 
possibly do. 

The young, in aiming to fit themselves for the best so- 
ciety, should remember that there is no way in which they 
can better do this, than by making it a point of personal 
pride not to repeat to a soul a syllable that was not in- 
tended for repetition. The tattler and the Paul Pry 
are the meanest characters of society, and he who would 
feel superior in strength and integrity, should strive vig- 
orously to have nothing in common with such baseness. 
A single bit of gossip in circulation stamped with your 
name will excite general distrust and doubt as to your 
fidelity. It may not be clear to the youthful reader why 



148 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

this should be so, but if he or she will implicitly follow 
the rule of strictly avoiding all gossip whatever, the time 
will come when the immense advantages gained from such 
observance will be as a bright light over a whole lifetime. 

The most certain means of acquiring those gifts which 
fit one to adorn the best society, is to very strictly adhere 
to the rule of doing as you would be done by, at all times, 
and on all occasions, firmly resisting all temptation to the 
contrary. This, with culture, will be able to impart, in 
time and with experience, that firmness and confidence 
which, when a' lied to grace, invariably bestow tact and 
practical wisdom. 

There are many women of the world who are not 
worldly women. Some good people are under the im- 
pression that brilliancy in society, elegance and grace in 
manner and in conversation, have nothing in common with 
love for all mankind, with forgiving our enemies, and with 
endeavoring assiduously to do good in every way to old 
and young, rich and poor — they think that tenderness of 
heart and conscience are not to be reconciled with the 
character of a gay man or woman of the world ; but it is 
a great error, for all of these qualities may be best acquired 
with the aid of a good heart. It is time the ridiculous 
error were dissipated — that one must needs be more or less 
hardened and frivolous to enjoy life in its most elegant 
phases. The truth is, that the really best people in the 
world ought to be among those who best know it. The 
higher, the more exalted the society, the greater is its cul- 
ture and refinement, and the less does gossip prevail. 
People in such circles find too much of interest in the 
world of art and literature and science to discuss, without 
gloating over the shortcomings of their neighbors. 

Wherever gossip forms the chief staple of conversation, 
there the society is bad. Bad society has been divided into 



BAD SOCIETY. 149 

three classes : First, that in which both morals and manners 
are bad. Secoud, that in which the manners appear to be 
good, be the morals what they will. Third, that in which 
the manners appear to be good, but the morals are detestable. 
The first is low, the second vulgar, the third dangerous so- 
ciety. Few people need to be warned against low society. 
The first proof of lowness is seen in undue familiarity. 
The women often lay their hands upon the arms of the 
men with whom they are speaking; or touch them to se- 
cure their attention, as they address them, allowing them- 
selves at the same time, to be treated with a latitude of 
manner and a freedom of speech which shocks a man or 
woman of self-respect. 

There is another kind of familiarity that need not be 
repelled — that is, when a civil workman, or any one of 
lo\ver station addresses a remark to you. Then you 
should answer with courtesy, and not turn away as a snob 
would do. "Something God hath to say to thee worth 
hearing from the lips of all," and you may be sure that 
you will learn something from him, if you talk to him in 
a friendly manner ; while, if you are really a gentleman, 
being seen in his society can do you no harm. 

The next kind of bad society is the vulgar, in which the 
morals may be good, but the manners are undoubtedly bad. 
The test of this kind of society is general vulgarity of con- 
duct. In Xew England, the word vulgarity was formerly 
confined to the low, mean, and essentially plebeian. It 
would be well if we could so limit it in the present day ; 
but the great increase in the numbers of those admitted into 
society, and the importance that wealth gives, have thrust 
vulgarity, even, into the circles of good society, where 
like black sheep in white flocks, you will find thoroughly 
vulgar men and women occupying prominent positions. 
Where the majority of the company is decidedly vulgar, 



150 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the society may be set down as bad. In this class, you 
will find those who after struggling to get under the iron 
grating which hedges society around, use their best en- 
deavors to keep its gates closed to those, who, scorning to 
creep under, will not enter until its door has flown open to 
receive them in its midst. Here also, will be found those 
who, when they are in the presence of Madame Follie, 
whose acquaintance they have moved heaven and earth to 
make, do not notice Madame Voisine, who made way to 
give them a place when she found them crowding in upon 
her ; or, if they do notice her, are condescendingly gracious, 
while to Madam Follie they are as deferential as if she 
were an angel. True refinement of feeling never wars 
against true civility, and is never more civil to the Madame 
Follies of society, than to its Madame Voisines. Such 
members of society, with Jack Lowbred, who cannot lift 
his own carpet-bag from his hack ; Arthur Lighthead, who 
would not be seen with a bundle in his hand ; Miss Pre- 
tender, who does not own a thimble, Mrs. Affect, who 
rings if she wishes the position of her footstool changed, 
are not ladies and gentlemen, but vulgar people. It rather 
astonishes such persons to find that a nobleman travelling 
here, can carry his bag when necessary, that he looks upon 
a man who will not touch a bundle as a cad ; and that 
there are few real ladies who do not own thimbles, and 
make good use of them too, and who do not prefer to wait 
upon themselves in small matters to having a servant rung 
for. The true gentleman, the true lady, can do nothing 
that is vulgar. 

The third class of bad society is that in which the man- 
ners and breeding are perfect, and the morals bad; which 
is, at the same time, strange as it may seem, the least and 
the most dangerous society. All vice is here gilded ; it is 
made elegant and covered with a gloss of good breeding. 



BAD SOCIETY. 151 

Men and women have almost public reputations to keep up. 
All that is done is sub rosa. There are none of the grosser 
vices admitted; no drunkenness, no swearing, and no 
coarseness. But there is enough of gambling still to ruin 
a young man; and the "social evil" here takes its most 
elegant and most seductive form. While, therefore, on the 
one hand, you may mix in this kind of society, and see, 
and therefore know, very little of its immorality, its vices, 
when known to you, assume a fashionable prestige and a 
certain delicacy which seem to deprive them of their gross- 
ness and make them the more tempting. The true queen 
of society does not reign here. Gold is not the currency 
that is used. Like the coin of Henry VIII, you have but 
to test it, and its sham is revealed. Chesterfield classifies 
good company under two heads : those who have the lead 
m courts, and in the gay part of life, and those who are 
distinguished by some merit, or who excel in some par- 
ticular branch of art or science. Thackeray says : A so- 
ciety that sets up to be polite, and ignores arts and letters 
is a snobbish society. Another authority says : Call no 
society good, until we have sounded its morals as well as 
its manners. 

Bad company is much more easily defined than good, 
Chesterfield says, — and the opinion of a man who for 
twelve years labored to make a graceful gentleman of his 
son (though he failed to do so, he certainly thought and 
wrote more on the manners of good society than any man 
before and since), may well deter any one in the present 
time from seeking to give a definition of good society that 
shall include all its requirements. 

An English writer has said that the problem of ed- 
ucation will be solved when one generation of good 
teachers has been trained. May it not also be said, that 
when one generation of young girls has been trained to 



152 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

become good wives, good mothers and good teachers, we 
shall have a society in which the well-bred will predom- 
inate over the ill-bred. Woman's mission in the future 
lies in the instruction and the elevation of mankind; for 
the present, in the instruction and elevation of her own 
sex. This idea of informing the masses belongs to our 
times ) it opens out new doctrines to the world. When 
one reflects what might have been accomplished, had but 
one-half the effort bent upon securing the elective fran- 
chise to women been expended in revealing to them their 
true mission, one is ready to exclaim against the blindness 
that has prevented such «as pi rants from seeing the magnifi- 
cent field of their legitimate labor, stretching as it does be- 
fore them into eternity. When once a glimpse of the 
grand work that the Creator has assigned to woman breaks 
upon her, it is as when an astronomer, sweeping the heav- 
ens with his glass, turns it upon some nebulous group of 
stars for the first time, while world upon world reveals 
itself to his vision. 

What do women want with votes, when they hold the 
sceptre of influence with which they can control -even 
votes, if they wield it aright? But so to wield it they must 
have that education which enables them to stand side by 
side with their brothers, their husbands, their friends. It 
was Sheridan, who, seeing how vast the power they hold, 
how irresistible the influence they exert, conceived the idea 
of establishing for them in England a national education, 
because of the little care generally bestowed upon their 
studies and their training 

Women govern us, said he; let us try to render them 
perfect ; the more they are enlightened, so much the more 
shall we be. On the cultivation of the mind of women 
depends the wisdom of men. It is by women that nature 
writes indelible lessons on the heart of man. Not only 



woman's mission. 153 

when she fills the sphere of a wife, a mother, a teacher, 
but in every state of life it is woman who has it in her 
power to influence for good or for evil the men with whom 
she is thrown. The silent influence of example in her 
home does much; the precepts that flow from her lips 
clothe themselves with power because of her example. 

How often is the remark made that the ignorant and 
the depraved among men crowd away from the polls the 
intelligent and the high-minded. Would women of no 
education, and no character, stay away to make room for 
women of cultivated minds and pure hearts ? To improve 
our legislation we stand in need of the votes of the educated 
classes, not of the illiterate, and yet it is the votes of the 
latter class that would be increased in number by women 
suffrage. 

Women are neither warriors, magistrates nor legis- 
lators, says Aime Martin. They form one-half of the 
human race, which, on account of its very weakness, has 
escaped the corruptions of our power and of our glory. 
Oh, let them cease to regret that they have no share in 
those fatal passions ; let them leave to us legislation, the 
political arena, armies, war; were they to partake of our 
fury, who would there be on earth to appease it? Herein 
lies their influence, here is their empire. Here woman's 
mission reveals itself. In their souls, much more than in 
the laws of legislators, repose the futurity of the world 
and the destinies of the human race. As they bear in 
their bosoms future generations, so likewise do they carry 
in their souls the destinies of these generations. 

But not alone, as has already been said — not alone to 
those women who become wives and mothers are these 
destinies confided. Every woman has a share in this 
work. Let her see that it is done to the best of her 
ability. If a man's pen is mightier than his sword, so 



154 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

also is a woman's pen mightier than her vote. If her 
domestic avocations do not engross all her time, and she 
has the gift of the pen, she can use it, though ever so 
feebly, in behalf of some one of the great educational 
movements of the day. Then may we hope that this age 
will be spoken of by a future generation as one of educa- 
tional reform, in which women learned that their strength 
lies not in the ballot-box, but in their influence as daugh- 
ters, sisters, wives, mothers, teachers and writers. The 
weakest woman, by concentrating her powers, and using 
them steadily on a single subject, can accomplish some- 
thing. 

" Work for some good, be it ever so lowly : 
Labor, all labor, is noble and holy;" 

and in due time you shall reap if you faint not. No good 
seed ever dies. When the hand that has planted it is 
cold in death, the fruit will ripen for an immortal har- 
vest. 

The true field of woman's labor lies all around her; 
first in her home, next in fields outside, if she has strength 
and ability for other work. 

According to the talents intrusted to her care is the 
weight of every woman's responsibility. Providence has 
placed her just where her work is to be done. If she is 
contented to do the duty that lies nearest to her ; and if 
faithful in small things, her life-work will broaden before 
her, growing richer and fuller as the years speed on. 
The fulness and richness of a mother's mission does not 
come to all, but where it does come, what higher or 
nobler work is assigned to her ? She holds in her hands 
the future destinies of her children, as Napoleon said. 

Aime Martin, writing of a mother's love and a mother's 
influence, says there is power always acting beneath our 
eyes, an invariable love, a creative will (the only one on 



155 

earth, perhaps, which seeks but for our happiness), left 
without direction since the beginning of the world, for 
want of general and enlightened appreciation of its impor- 
tance. What is the child to the preceptor? It is an 
ignorant being to be instructed. What is the child to 
the mother? It is a soul which requires to be formed. 
Good teachers make good scholars, but it is only mothers 
that form men ; this constitutes all the difference of their 
mission. 

We know that good statesmen are needed to regulate 
our laws, and to make new ones which will protect the 
rights and ameliorate the wrongs of women ; but it is 
woman's lofty privilege to mould and form the minds of 
statesmen. Let her never forget that although armies are 
required to control nations, it is the diffusion of knowledge 
and morality that civilizes and saves them. 



156 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE, 



CHAPTER V. 

DINNERS — EXCLUSIVE SOCIETY — LIVING FOR OTHERS. 

Never forget that at a dinner, as on all occasions of hospitality, 
it is your chief duty to relieve the hostess from every annoyance or 
care. It must not be imagined that the dinner is simply given for 
the purpose of giving a gross and purely material pleasure. It puts 
you in company with persons of consideration, and gives you an 
opportunity to display your intelligence, or to cause your good qual- 
ities to be appreciated. — Baron de Mortemat Boisse". 

I cannot omit here to mark down my hatred, scorn, and indigna- 
tion towards those miserable snobs who come to dinner at nine, when 
they are asked at eight, in order to make a sensation in the company. 

— Thackeray. 

One day, coming home from the club, Mr. Gray conveyed to his 
wife the astonishing information that he had asked Goldmore to 
dinner. 

II My love," says Mrs. Gray, in a tremor, " how could you be so 
cruel? Why, the dining-room won't hold Mrs. Goldmore." 

" Make your mind easy, Mrs. Gray; her ladyship is in Paris." 

— Thackeray. 

Since dinner parties, served after the Russian fashion, 
have become the prevailing mode, a host and hostess are 
able to entertain without anxiety, provided they have 
well-drilled servants and a good cook. Dexterity, rapid- 
ity, and, above everything else, quietness, added to a 
thorough knowledge of their duties, form the essential 
requisites of good butlers and waiters. Invitations for a 
dinner party are not sent by post in our cities, and are 
only answered by post where the distance is such as to 



DINNERS. 157 

make it inconvenient to send a servant. They are issued 
in the name of the gentleman and lady of the house ten 
days or one week in advance. They should be answered 
as soon as they are received, and, if accepted, the engage- 
ment should, on no account, be lightly broken. This rule 
is a binding one, as the non-arrival of an expected guest 
produces disarrangement of plans. The hours most gen- 
erally selected are six, seven and eight o'clock. To be 
exactly punctual on these occasions is the only politeness. 
If you are too early, you are in the way; if too late, you 
spoil the dinner, annoy the hostess, and are backbitten 
by the guests. 

Whom to invite is a consideration which requires the 
exercise of judgment and discretion. Dinners are gener- 
ally looked upon as entertainments for married people and 
the middle-aged, but it is often desirable to have some 
young unmarried persons also, notwithstanding the clever 
author of Miss Majoribanks says " that young people are 
the ruin of society.' 7 Those whom you invite should be 
of the same standing. They need not necessarily be 
friends, nor even acquaintances; but, as at a dinner, 
people come into closer contact than at a dance, or any 
other kind of a party, those only should be invited to 
meet one another who move in the same class of circles. 
Care must necessarily be taken that those whom you think 
will be agreeable to each other are placed side by side 
around the festive board. Good talkers are invaluable at 
a dinner party — people who have fresh ideas and plenty 
of warm words to clothe them in; but good listeners are 
equally invaluable. 

At one of our watering-places, a celebrated historian, a 
distinguished statesman, and a well-known author, were 
invited to dine with a man of wealth who was renowned 
for his hospitality. The dinner party consisted of only 



158 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

ten persons, and conversation was general, or would have 
been, but that the author so resembled the exhilarating 
champagne he was drinking (in the continued effervescing 
of an endless stream of sparkling bubbles), that no other 
guest had an opportunity to contribute a share. If the. 
historian essayed to make a quotation, scarcely had the 
first words escaped his lips when the author seized upon 
it and finished it for him ; but so brilliant, so witty, so 
stimulating was his talk that every one at the table lis- 
tened with pleasure, though all sighed for an opportunity 
to utter some of the clever thoughts that were called into 
life by the action of his mind upon their own. When 
the calm and dignified statesman waited upon the wife of 
the historian to her carriage, she said to him, " My hus- 
band has long wished to meet you, Mr. Blank." His 
answer was, "And I have equally wished to meet him. 
Now we have only seen each other, but w T e have all heard, 
as well as seen, Mr. Dash." 

No one should ever monopolize conversation, unless he 
wishes to win for himself the name of a bore, and to be 
avoided as such. 

A host and hostess generally judge of the success of a 
dinner by the manner in which conversation has been sus- 
tained. If it has flagged often, it is considered a proof 
that the guests have not been congenial ; but if a steady 
stream of talk has been kept up, it shows that they have 
smoothly amalgamated as a whole. 

There are some epicures who fancy that their dishes are 
not appreciated, if the conversation becomes very ani- 
mated. One of these gourmets, who prided himself upon 
the perfection to which he had brought his dinners, found 
his guests upon one occasion getting too deeply absorbed 
in conversation, and signalled to his butler to stop serving 
the courses After some delay, questioning glances were 



DINNERS. 159 

exchanged around the table, and a dead pause followed 
the hum and buzz. The butler was then notified that the 
dinner could go on ! This gentleman, who was a man of 
distinction, never made the mistake of having too many 
courses, nor of serving too great a variety of wines, nor of 
keeping his guests too long at the table ; but the wines 
were priceless, and the dishes served were faultless in 
every respect, as well as all the appointments of the table. 

A snow-white cloth of the finest damask, beautiful china, 
glistening cut glass, or fine engraved glass, and polished 
plate, are considered essential to a grand dinner. Choice 
flowers, ferns and mosses tastefully arranged, add much to 
the beauty of the table. At the right of each cover, a 
sherry and hock, champagne, claret and Burgundy glass 
are placed, with a tumbler or goblet for water. A salt-cellar 
should be in reach of every guest, and a water-carafe. 
Napkins should be folded square, and placed with a roll 
of bread on each plate. To find them folded in intricate 
forms is too suggestive of their having been in other hands 
than your own, and is considered boarding-house or hotel 
style. The dessert is placed on the table amidst the flowers, 
the natural fruit, garnished with green leaves, and the 
crystallized, in tiny-fluted and lace-bordered white paper 
shells, piled on their respective dishes. An epergne or low 
dish of flowers graces the centre; stands of bon-bons and 
confectionery are ranged on both sides of the table, with 
candelabra at each end, which complete the necessary 
decorations. No wine is placed on the table. The name 
of each guest, written upon a card and placed on the plates, 
marks the seat assigned ; the arrangement of which the 
hostess may have found to involve as much thought as a 
game of chess, for in no way is tact more called into exer- 
cise than in the distributing of guests at a dinner-table. 

" The numbers at a dinner should not be less than the 



160 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Graces, nor more than the Muses. " When this rule is 
observed, the host will be able to designate to each gentle- 
man the lady whom he is to conduct; but when the num- 
ber exceeds this limit, it is an excellent plan to have the 
name of each couple written upon a card and inclosed in 
an addressed envelope, ready to be handed to the gentle- 
men, by a servant, before entering the drawing-room, or 
left on a tray for the guests to select those which bear their 
names. If a gentleman finds upon his card the name of a 
lady with whom he is not acquainted, he requests the host 
to present him immediately after he has spoken with the 
hostess, also to any members of the family with whom he 
is not acquainted. All the guests should have themselves 
introduced to the one for whom the dinner is given. Should 
two persons, unknown to each other, find themselves placed 
side by side at a table, they enter into conversation without 
any introduction. 

Fifteen minutes is the longest time required to wait for a 
tardy guest. Then the dinner should be announced, and 
the host offers his right arm to the lady who is to be 
escorted by him; the others follow, arm in arm, the hostess 
being the last to leave the drawing-room. 

Age should take the precedence in proceeding from the 
drawing-room to the dining-room, the younger falling back 
until the older have advanced. A host waits upon the 
oldest lady or the greatest stranger, or if there be a bride 
present, precedence is given to her, unless the dinner is 
given for another person. The hostess is escorted either 
by the eldest gentleman or the greatest stranger, or some 
one whom she wishes to place in the seat of honor, w r hich 
is on her right. The host places the lady w r hom he escorts 
upon his right. The seats of the host and hostess may be 
at the middle, on opposite sides of the table, or at the ends. 

The servants commence upon the right of the master in 



DINNERS. 161 

passing the dishes, ending with the lady of the house; and 
with the guest on their mistress's right, ending with the 
master. 

A master or mistress should refrain from speaking to 
their servants at dinner, let what will go wrong. Care 
should be taken that they wear thin-soled shoes, that their 
steps may be noiseless, and if they use napkins in serving 
(as is the English custom), instead of gloves, their hands 
and nails should be faultlessly clean. One waiter to four 
persons, where there is a butler to carve, is sufficient; and 
if well trained, one for every six is quite enough. A good 
servant is never awkward ; he turns the bottle after pour- 
ing each glass of wine, so as to prcveut the last drop from 
trickling down or falling on the ladies' dresses, or protects 
it with his napkin. He avoids coughing, breathing hard, 
or treading on a lady's dress ; never lets any article drop, 
and deposits plates, glasses, knives, forks and spoons noise- 
lessly. It is now considered good form for a servant not 
to wear gloves in waiting at table, but to use a damask 
napkin, with one corner wrapped around the thumb, that 
he may not touch the plates and dishes with the naked 
hand. 

A dining-room should have a carpet on it, even in sum- 
mer, to deaden the noise of the servants' footsteps. The 
chairs should be comfortable, and a footstool should be 
provided for each lady. The temperature should be care- 
fully attended to, that the room may be neither too cool 
nor too warm. The light should be in profusion, thrown 
on the table from a sufficient height not to create any glare 
in the eyes of the guests. 

As soon as seated, remove your gloves, place your table- 
napkin partly opened across your lap, your gloves under 
it, and your roll on the left hand side of your plate. If 
raw oysters are already served, you at once begin to eat; 

11 



162 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

to wait for others to commence is old-fashioned. Take 
soup from the side of the spoon, and avoid making any 
sound in drawing it up or swallowing it. 

If you have occasion to speak to a servant, wait until you 
can catch his eye, and then ask in a low tone for what you 
want. The mouth should always be kept closed in eating, 
and both eating and drinking should be noiseless. A wine- 
glass is held by the stem, not by the bowl. Never drink a 
glassful at once, nor drain the last drop. Bread is broken 
at dinner. Vegetables are eaten with a fork. Asparagus 
can be taken up with the fingers, if so preferred. Olives 
and artichokes are always so eaten. 

It is well to observe what others do when any doubts 
exist in the mind, as customs differ everywhere. 

Fish and fruit are eaten with silver knives and forks. 
If silver fish-knives are not provided, a piece of bread in 
the left hand answers the purpose as well, with the fork 
in the right.* A soup-plate should never be tilted for the 
last spoonful. As the plate of each course is set before 
you with knife and fork upon it, remove the knife and 
fork instantly. This instruction cannot be too carefully 
observed. The serving of an entire course is delayed by 
neglecting to remove them. To a hostess, it is very try- 
ing to look down the sides of her table and see plate after 
plate with the knives and forks on them, which have to 
be removed by her servants, and placed at the side of the 
plates as they are serving; when, if her guests had not 
been inattentive to their duties, they would have been 
taken off as soon as the plate had been set before them, 
and the servants spared the awkwardness of doing it. 

Anything like greediness or indecision must not be 
indulged in. You must not take up one piece and lay it 

* In England, it is considered to be underbred ever to transfer the 
fork to the ri^ht hand. 



DINNERS. 163 

down in favor of another, or hesitate. It looks gauche in 
the extreme not to know one's mind about trifles. 

Ladies seldom take cheese at dinner parties, or wine at 
dessert. Cheese is eaten with a fork, and not with a knife. 

Never allow the butler, or the one who pours, to fill 
your glass with wine that you do not wish to drink. A 
well-trained servant mentions the wine before pouring it; 
and where one has not been trained to do so, you can 
check him by touching the rim of your glass. 

You are at liberty to refuse a dish that you do not wish 
to eat. If any course is set down before you that you do 
not wish, do not touch it. Never play with food, nor 
mince with your bread, nor handle the glass and silver 
near you unnecessarily. 

Finger-glasses, with water slightly warmed and per- 
fumed, are preferable to passing a silver basin in which 
each dips his napkin in turn. Remove the d'oyley to the 
left hand, and place the finger glass upon it as soon as the 
dessert-plate has been placed before you. The dinner 
napkin is to be used for wiping the fingers, and never the 
d'oyley, unless at family dinners, where colored ones are 
used. 

Toasts and drinking the health are out of date with us 
happily, but no one can refuse when asked to drink with 
another. It is sufficient to fasten your eye upon the eye 
of the one asking you, bow the head slightly, touch the 
wine to your lips, and again bow before setting down the 
glass. The mouth should always be wiped with the 
napkin both before and after drinking. Have no fear in 
taking the last piece on the dish when it is offered to you. 
It is more uncivil to refuse it than to take it. If you 
break anything, do not apologize for it. Show the regret 
that you feel in your manner, but do not put it into 
words, while you are at the table. 



164 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

The lady of the house should instruct her servants not 
to remove her plate until her guests have finished. The 
duties of a hostess are not onerous; but they demand tact, 
good breeding, and self-possession. If she speaks of any 
omission by which her servants have inconvenienced her 
guests, she must do it with dignity, not betraying any 
undue annoyance. She must put all her guests at their 
ease, and pay every possible attention to the requirements 
of each and all around her. No accident must disturb 
her; no disappointment embarrass her. Her precious 
china and her rare glass, if broken before her eyes, she 
must seem not to be aware of it. The host must aid the 
hostess in her efforts; he must have the genius of tact to 
perceive, and the genius of finesse to execute, ease and 
frankness of manner, a knowledge of the world that 
nothing can surprise, a calmness of temper that nothing 
can disturb, and a kindness of disposition that can never 
be exhausted. He must encourage the timid, draw out 
the silent, and direct conversation rather than sustain it 
himself. He who does not strive after this end is wanting 
in his duty as a host. Never reprove servants before any 
one. No matter what may go wrong, a hostess possessing 
savoir vivre will never seem to notice it, to the annoyance 
of her guests. By passing it over herself, it will escape 
the attention of others, very frequently. If her guests 
arrive late, she must welcome them as cordially as if 
they had come early; but as she will commit a rudeness 
towards those who arrive punctually by waiting long, she 
must not feel compelled to remain in her drawing-room 
beyond the fifteen minutes of grace that custom has pre- 
scribed. Thackeray is very severe upon those who arrive 
late; but unavoidable mistakes in the hour, made some- 
times by those who are entirely innocent of any wish to 
produce a sensation, cause guests to be very uncharitable, 



DINNERS. 165 

although the host and hostess may not be so. Gentlemen 
cannot be invited without their wives, where other ladies 
than those of the family are present; or ladies without 
their husbands, when other ladies are invited with their 
husbands. This rule has no exceptions. It seems that it 
had never entered Mrs. Gray's mind that Mr. Gold more 
could have been invited even to a family dinner, and Mrs. 
Goldmore left at home, to dine alone. But this is con- 
stantly done when men alone are invited. Some persons 
feel slighted if their guests receive any attentions that are 
not extended to themselves. But four out of one family 
would go far towards constituting a family dinner; and it 
is not reasonable, where the dinner is a very small one, to 
expect to be included. When the dinner is a large and 
ceremonious one, some member or members of the family 
with whom the invited guests are staying, should be 
invited with them. 

Epergnes are now often replaced by low dishes of 
majolica, crystal, or silver, filled with flowers. These are 
preferable, as they do not hide the faces around the table. 
Every hostess now has her own ideas in reference to embel- 
lishing a dinner-table, which prevents that tiresome uni- 
formity that used to prevail. The host has the same 
privilege in his wines, both in the order of serving and in 
the variety. Everywhere, however, Sherry is served with 
soup, and Sauterne or Hock with fish. As a general rule, 
Americans prefer Champagne, served after fish, with all 
the courses ; but red wine should be provided for those 
who prefer it. Red wine should never be iced, even in 
summer. Burgundy for game, and Claret for sweets, 
should be made the temperature of the room, or a trifle 
warmer. It destroys the flavor of choice wines to ice them 
or to heat them too much. Lumps of ice should never be 



166 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

placed ill any glasses excepting those used for water. 
Champagne is iced in the bottles. 

The glasses are removed by the servants when the crumb 
knife is used, and replaced with Madeira and Sherry 
glasses for the sweets and dessert. One must not speak of 
Sherry wine, Port wine, etc., but of Sherry and Port. 
Choose your wine and keep it, never taking but one kind 
at dessert. 

The butler pours the wines in turn, mentioning the 
name of each wine, and pouring it immediately, unless 
signalled not to do so. If he pours more than you wish, 
you check him by touching your glass. Port, when passed 
with the cheese, is left on the table with the Sherry and 
Madeira, after the one or the other has been served to all 
the guests. When the hostess sees that all have finished, 
she looks at the lady who is sitting on the right of the 
host, and the company rise, and return in the order that 
they are seated without precedence. When not served at 
the table, coffee is passed in the drawing-room almost im- 
mediately. An hour or so later, tea is passed to those 
guests who have not already taken their departure. On 
the arrival of each carriage, a servant enters and an- 
nounces it in a low tone to the owner. 

As eating with another under his roof is in all conditions 
of society regarded as a sign of good will, those who par- 
take of proffered hospitalities only to slander and abuse 
their host and hostess, should remember that in the opin- 
ion of all honorable persons they injure themselves only 
by doing so. The Count of Monte Cristo makes it a 
strong point that he has eaten nothing under the roof of 
those he is plotting against ; and this has been the feeling, 
from the earliest times, of gentlemen and ladies, and has 
survived in all its force to the present day with the well- 
trained and the honorable-minded. 



DINNERS. 167 

Calls should be made shortly after a dinner party by 
all who have been invited, whether the invitation was ac- 
cepted or not. Those who are in the habit of giving din- 
ners though en petit comite, or even only en famille, should 
return the invitation before another dinner invitation is 
extended. Society is very severe upon those who do not 
return their debts of hospitality, if they have the means 
to do so. If they never entertain any one, because of lim- 
ited means, or for other good reasons, it is so understood, 
and never expected that they should make exceptions ; or 
if they are in the habit of giving other entertainments, 
and not dinners, their debts of hospitality can be returned 
by invitations to whatever the entertainment may be. 

Some are deterred from accepting invitations by the feel- 
ing that they cannot return the hospitality in as magnificent 
a form. It is not the costly preparations, nor the ex- 
pensive repast offered, which are the most agreeable fea- 
tures of any invitation, it is the kind and friendly feeling 
that is shown. Those who are not deterred from accepting 
such invitations for this reason, and who enjoy the fruits 
of the friendliness thus shown them, must possess narrow 
views of their duty, and very little self-respect, if, when 
an opportunity presents itself in any way to reciprocate 
the kind feeling manifested, they fail to avail them- 
selves of it. The judgment of society is equally as hard 
on such, as was Thackeray upon those who arrived late at 
a dinner, and the mean man, in his estimation, was as snob- 
bish as the ostentatiously profuse one, or as the pretentious 
one. 

True hospitality, however, neither expects nor desires 
any return, and it is only the inhospitable that keep a 
debt and credit account. 

It is a mistake to think that in giving a dinner it is 
indispensable to have certain dishes, and a variety of 



168 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

wines, because others serve them. Those who entertain 
constantly, often use their own discretion, and never feel 
obliged to do as others do, if they wish to do differently. 

Some of the most enjoyable dinners given are those 
which are the least expensive. We have too many courses, 
too great a variety of wines, keep our guests too long at 
the table. The last Napoleon said no man was excusable 
for keeping his guests over two hours at the table; but 
how often do we hear the ignorant speaking of the number 
of hours (sometimes four or five), as the gauge of the suc- 
cess of a dinner. One of the best of American men once 
called a menu, copied from the dinner of a foreign min- 
ister who is still famous for his good dinners (at a certain 
European Court where no bad dinners are ever heard of), 
" a starvation menu" rejoicing that he was not one of the 
invited guests. Another American, who is the very prince 
of hospitality himself, shook his head and criticized the 
menu of a dinner served in a royal palace, as having too 
few courses, too few wines. 

It is this general feeling that people cannot entertain 
without committing all sorts of extravagances, which 
causes many persons, in every way well qualified to do in- 
calculable good socially, to exclude themselves from all 
general society. 

The result is that minds which are expanded by culture 
and experience are frequently shut out from the sphere 
where their influence is most needed. Mere boys and 
girls, in certain circles, constitute and control society; 
and those who strive for a reformation, have in more than 
one instance been made the victims of the boorishnessand 
the want of cultivation which they condemned; while 
others, among the better cultivated, who should have stood 
by them, in behalf of the interests of society, have helped 
to swell the tide of ridicule that was encountered. 



DINNERS. 169 

In these days, intellect is transferred from the head to 
the heels, and when we ask what is discussed at parties, 
the appropriate answer would be, " people dance." This 
will not be remedied until the silly spirit of rivalry and 
ostentation is subdued, and people learn that it is possible 
to receive friends without turning their homes into res- 
taurants. Let those who have the gift of entertaining, by 
promoting conversation among their guests, and putting 
them at ease, receive their friends freely, without feeding 
them. 

In our large cities, receptions without suppers are well 
attended. Their great point of advantage has already 
been shown in a previous chapter. That man is to be 
pitied who cannot enjoy :ocial intercourse without eating 
and drinking. Trie lowest orders, it is true, cannot im- 
agine a cheerful assembly without the attractions of the 
table, and this reflection alone should induce all who aim 
at intellectuel culture to endeavor to avoid placing the 
choicest phases of social life on such a basis. 

Some of the most charming dinners given are those 
which are the leaet expensive. No variety of wines are 
necessary. Sherry for the soup and sweets, and red wine, 
or Champagne, are sufficient. When everything is good in 
quality, and the dishes are well dressed, served hot and in 
proper succession, with their adjuncts, and where the guests 
are congenial, a degree of enjoyment will be insured that 
no one need be afraid to offer. A spotless tablecloth, thin 
glass — though neither engraved nor cut, the plainest china 
— if not cracked or fractured at the edges, are all that is 
absolutely necessary in the way of table appointments, pro- 
vided the silver and the cutlery are in equally good con- 
dition Small dinners can always be better served than 
large ones, and the hostess who has only her own well- 
trained servants to wait on the table can enjoy the society 



170 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

of her guests, as she is not able to do when the number is 
so large that waiters must be called in to assist. Some wait- 
ing-maids are as thoroughly trained and as expeditious as 
any butler can be, and it is much better, where two men 
servants are not kept, to have the waiting-maid assist, than 
to trust a stranger, when the dinner is a small one. 

The following verses give a clue to the secret of the 
highest enjoyment of all social gatherings, be they small 
or large. In this menu for two we see it was the com- 
panionship, the sympathy that existed, which secured the 
enjoyment of the dinner more than the number of courses; 
and that even a " starvation dinner," may be made a feast 
of love and a flow of soul: 



"We dined. A fish from the river beneath, 
A cutlet, a bird from the windy heath 

Where we had wandered, happy and mute; 
It was a silent day with us — 
In the early time it is often thus ; 

But my sweet love chatted when came the fruit. 

*' Flavor of sunburnt nectarine, 

And the light that danced thro' a wine-glass thin, 

Filled with juice of the grape of Rhine ; 
She talked and laughed about this and that, 
Easy, exquisite, foolish chat, 

While her pretty, fluttering hand sought mine. 

*' And I thought : Come glory or come distress, 
In this wonderful, weary wilderness, 

This hour is mine till the day of death ; 
The fruit, the wine, and my lady fair, 
With a flower of the heath in her dim brown hair, 

And a sigh of love in her fragrant breath." 

A more matter of fact menu is the one before referred to, 
as used at a small dinner given in a royal palace, which is 
as follows : 



DINNERS. 171 



Potage Tortue a 1'Anglaise — Zeres. 

Petits Chartreuses a la Yalencienne — Ch. Lafitte. 
Darnes de Saumon a la St. Cloud — Ch. d'Yquem. 
Quartier de Chevreuil glace a la Varin — Champagne. 

Cotelettes d'Agneau a la Richelieu — Bourgogne. 
Dindonneaux bardes rotis, garni de Cresson — Stein berger, 1846. 
Salade aux truffes a I 'Eugenie — Steinberger, 1846. 

Fonds d'Artichauts a la Lyonnaise — Champagne. 
Pouding a la d'Albertas — Champagne. 

DESSERT 

Compotes assortis et glace — Vieille Madere. 
Oranges, Raisin frais et bon-bons, Canaris. 

It will be seen that Champagne was served with the 
sweets, as is the Continental custom. Biscuit, cheese, coffee 
and cordials are never placed on foreign menus, but are 
always served. "When the dinner has been -a protracted 
one, coffee and cordials are passed in the drawing-room; 
but when it has not exceeded the limited two hours it is 
better to have them passed before leaving the table, as in 
France. Gentlemen do not remain to smoke after the 
ladies leave; but the host provides cigars in his library, 
billiard-room, or smoking-room, as he chooses. 

The menu of the " starvation dinner" was as follows : 

MENU II. 

Sherry — Consomme a la Roy ale. Puree a la Reine. 

Petites timbales aux champignons. 

Hock — Poisson, sauce Hollandaise. 

Champagne — Quartiers de chevreuil, sauce poivrade. 

Vol-au-vent a la Pari>ienne. 

Cotelettes d'agneau, a, la puree de marrons. 

Aspic de homards. Terrapin. Sherry. 

Punch a, la Romaine. 

Burgundy — Cailles rotis, salade. 

Asperges en branches. 

Sherry — Timbale de fruits, a la vanille. 

Glaces, dessert, bon-bons. 



172 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

The custom of passing two kinds of soup, and two kinds 
of fish, greatly retards the speedy serving of the dinner 
when the number of guests is large, and it is, therefore, 
better when only one kind is handed. 

Another menu from a dinner given by a Prussian noble- 
man, whose chef de cuisine and confiseur are almost as 
renowned (in their line) as is the nobleman himself, in 
another line, is as follows : 

MENU III. 

Le consomme Richelieu. 

Rissoles a la Monglas. 

Turbot, sauce aux huitres et homards. 

Selle de chevreuil, sauce poivrade et groseille. 

Supremes de volailles a la Marechale. 

Filets de gclinottes a la perigord. 

Chaufroix de foies gras & la gelee. 

Sorbets au champagne. 

Faisans de Boheme. 

Fonds d'artichaux a la Lyonnaise. 

Savarin a V Ananas. 

Glaces fruits, bon-bons. 

With this dinner, biscuit and cheese were handed in 
their course, green peas, delicious cakes and sweets, the 
handiwork of the confisew*, and coffee and cordials. The 
amount of money expended upon the teaching of cooks 
and pastry cooks of wealthy noblemen would astonish 
many of our gourmets. An American lady, for whom a 
dinner was given by a foreign nobleman, asked him where 
he had found a cook who could prepare and serve up such 
marvellous dishes, fancying he would say he had brought 
him from Paris. The answer was that he had taken a 
peasant woman from one of his own estates, and sent her 
first to Paris, and then to Berlin, paying large sums for 
her instruction, and keeping her in practice by sending her 



DINNERS. 173 

from time to time to famous chefs de cuisine in his own 
city. 

One more menu: this time of a state dinner, given for 
a Grand Duchess in Paris : 

MENU IV. 

Potage Sultane. 

Timbales a la Parisienne. 

Saumon, Sauce Crevettes. 

Filet de Bceuf a la Montmorency. 

Supremes de Filets de Yolailles aux Truffes. 

Cotelette de Chevreuil sauce poivrade. 

Pain de Foies gras en Bellevue. 

Punch a la Eomaine. 

Perdreaux et Cailles a la Perigueux. 

Salade de Eomaine. 

Petits pois a la Francaise. 

Napolitain. 

Madeleines Glacees. 

Bills of fare in English, are better than those written in 
French, for this side of the water. 

Servants hand the dishes to the left of the guests, when 
passing the courses. 

A gentleman who entertained company frequently at 
dinner had an attendant who was a native of Africa, that 
never could be taught to hand things invariably to the 
left hand of the guests at table. At length his master 
thought of an infallible expedient to direct him; and, as 
the coats were then worn single-breasted, in 'he present 
Quaker fashion, he told him always to hand the plate to 
the button-hole side. Unfortunately, however, for the 
poor fellow, on the day after he had received this inge- 
nious lesson there was among the guests at dinner a gen- 
tleman with a double-breasted coat, and the African was, 
for a while, completely at a stand. He looked first at 
one side of the gentleman's coat, then at the other, and 



174 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

finally, confounded at the outlandish make of the stranger's 
garments, he cast a despairing look at his master, and, ex- 
claiming in a loud voice, "Button-holes on both sides, 
massa!" handed the plate over the gentleman's head. 

Reaching the table, it was formerly the custom in old- 
school circles for every lady to remain standing until the 
hostess had reached her chair, she not seating herself until 
after the ladies who were her guests were seated. Now, 
for the greater convenience of the gentlemen who escort 
the ladies, they take their seats, leaving their cavaliers to 
remain standing until the hostess is seated. 

When a breakfast, a lunch, or a dinner, is served after 
the Russian fashion, no one should ask a second time for 
any dish ; but when passed more than once, one is, of 
course, at liberty to take a second portion. Servants pass 
the various dishes, after the French mode, when the por^ 
tions are not taken off by the butler at a side table, and 
the plate with its portion set down in front of each guest, 
as is frequently done when the guests number over twenty. 
This method of serving, though not so well approved, 
greatly facilitates the necessary dispatch, and is strictly d 
la Russe. The knives and forks* used in the course, pre^ 
viously placed on a cold plate in front of each person, are 
immediately removed by the guest (as before instructed). 
The servant who takes the hot plate, with the portion 
which the butler has served on it, removes the cold plate 
with the other hand, replacing it with the hot one and its 
contents. Here will be seen the importance of the imme- 
diate removal by each guest of the knife and fork, as 
otherwise the one serving is obliged to remove them, or is 
delayed by their tardy removal. 

* La fourchette ne se pose jamais sur le dos. Tous les utensiles de 
table ne doivent jamais etre donnes du cote de la pointe. II faut les 
tenir par le milieu. 



DIPLOMATIC ETIQUETTE. 175 

The old custom of placing the dishes on the table for 
exhibition before carving them is "out of date," much to 
the discomfiture of those cooks who prided themselves upon 
their skill in garnishing, but to the entire satisfaction of all 
others concerned. The present mode is much more expe- 
ditious, and all forms should be encouraged which have a 
tendency to limit the time occupied in serving the dinner 
to the two hours which good form prescribes. For small 
dinners one hour, or at most one hour and a half, is the 
allotted time. 

A Washington authority says, " Do not be persuaded to 
exceed ten courses." This is good advice. 

It is a pleasure to learn, through Mrs. Dahlgren's little 
book on " Etiquette," that young people in Washington do 
not hold the sway there that they do in some of our cities, 
and that parties, presided over by young ladies, and not dig- 
nified by the appearance of their parents, are unknown in the 
capital of our nation. Probably the presence of so many 
persons of importance in state affairs has a tendency to 
keep the young in their proper place ; and, without doubt, 
the example of well-trained foreign young ladies is bene- 
ficial. Our country is so large and our population so het- 
erogeneous the wonder is that we have been able to main- 
tain in any circles a general understanding as to the 
required conventionalities of society, and not that there 
should be a different understanding of them in different 
circles. 

In Washington, as in other places, it seems that animosi- 
ties have been engendered by the omission of certain ob- 
servances, exacted by some and not so understood by others, 
thus proving the importance of a general understanding 
of the duties imposed. Mention is made in Mrs. Dahl- 
gren's book of some Senator's wife who took offence because 
at a dinner the host had taken in the wife of a foreign 



176 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

minister instead of herself. The host was clearly in the 
right, as diplomatic etiquette required him to seat on his 
right the wife of the foreign minister present who had 
been longest at his post, and on his left, the wife of the 
most distinguished American who was his guest. 

All private social customs give way before the code of 
diplomatic etiquette. A lady who was passing a winter at 
a European court, after having received calls from different 
members of the court circle, found the card of the English 
minister left again, soon after, with that of his newly- 
arrived first secretary. As the wife of the secretary was a 
younger woman than herself, and had arrived later, the 
American lady could not understand why the secretary's 
wife had not accompanied her husband in his call. Before 
the winter was over the American lady learned that it was 
her duty to pay the first call, according to a rule which 
exempts the wives of diplomates from making some calls 
that it is the duty of others to make ; and that, after the 
call of the secretary, it was her duty to call upon his wife, 
as well as that by neglecting to make this call she had oc- 
casioned comment. The knowledge of such exceptions to 
general rules does not come intuitively, and it would have 
been a kindness had some friend instructed the lady as to 
her duty. 

Upon another occasion, the same lady, whose husband 
held no official position, was placed, contrary to her request, 
on the right of her host at a dinner that was given for 
her, while the wives of high official personages were seated 
beneath her. In this instance the host had taken the pre- 
caution to inquire of an authority if it would be in order 
to seat the lady for whom the dinner was given on his 
right, and the order of precedence had been changed to 
suit the occasion. The experiment, however, proved to be 
an unfortunate one in interrupting the kind feeling that 



PRECEDENCE. 177 

had before existed between the American lady and the wife 
of the oldest diplomate present, who felt herself aggrieved. 
It is fortunate that we are able in America to consult our 
wishes in such matters, and give age, or strangers, or those 
for whom the dinner is given, the precedence, according to 
American customs ; or a bride, according to English and 
New England rules, without being in danger of incurring 
ill-will by not observing the precedence that rank or sta- 
tion gives. 

Even in America, however, it is a good plan to regard 
the prejudices of others in such matters, and to leave out 
from dinners those who are in official positions if you do 
not wish to seat them where they have a right to expect to 
be seated, unless you can safely rely upon their good sense 
and reasonableness. " Render unto Caesar the things that 
are Caesar's " is a law that is still held in force by those who 
have been trained to respect it ; and if Caesar is a guest, he 
should have the seat that he is entitled to occupy. For- 
tunately, or unfortunately, we have few Caesars to trouble 
ourselves about, but the aged we have always with us, and 
they will always receive the respect of those who respect 
themselves. It is seldom that the aged are treated with 
seeming disrespect in cultivated circles, but frequently some 
want of attention towards the middle-aged jars upon our 
sensibilities, some lack of deference shocks us for a moment. 
An omission that would be only a neglect towards a 
younger person, becomes an impertinence towards an 
elder. A fictitious case will make the meaning clearer. 
We will suppose that a lady and her daughter, or two 
sisters living in the same house, one married, the other 
single, should make a call upon a dowager neighbor whom 
they had never met, and that the dowager, upon returning 
the visit on the reception-day, and during the hours desig- 
nated on the cards of the callers, should be received by the 

12 



178 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

young unmarried lady, while the elder one, although at 
home, should not make her appearance, and no apology 
be made for her absence; this would be more than an 
omission of duty, more than a want of proper respect. 
Ignorance on the part of the first caller could alone pre- 
vent it from seeming an impertinence, and that charity 
that thinketh no evil could alone prevent the last caller 
from feeling that she had been treated with premeditated 
rudeness.. Had she, however, been a young girl instead 
of a dowager, then there would have been no want of 
respect— no rudeness shown by the married lady's absent- 
ing herself, although even then the instinct of a lady 
should lead her to send her excuse for not appearing. 

Within the ethnical circle of good society there is a nar- 
rower and higher circle, and only in this inner and impe- 
rial court can one hope to meet with that fastidious exclu- 
sion of impertinences which marks a society of well-bred 
men and women. Some writers go so far as to affirm that 
there must be two generations of transmitted culture to 
insure this state of society. Admitting this, is the great 
difference between European society (such as one finds in 
their highest circles of rank), and fashionable American 
society, any cause for surprise, since the well-bred are in 
the majority in distinguished society abroad, while with us 
they are in the minority ? Here it is no unusual thing to 
see women, with the air and carriage of those European 
pretenders to fashion, who resemble, in the pose of their 
head and their general manners, a chambermaid dressed in 
her mistress's gown > or an ill-bred duchess, moving in the 
same class with our high-bred women who would grace 
the circles of any court. 

As a rule, the low-bred duchess, or the chambermaid, 
would learn sooner to imitate the repose and the simplicity 
of the well-bred than do these women. Even if their na- 



PRETENCE. 179 

tures are such as to cause them to be utterly obtuse to the 
effect they produce upon people of good-breeding, one 
would suppose there would be found somewhere within the 
limits of their family circles a relative who could enlighten 
them. Can it be that, finding themselves in the American 
Belgravia without that training which good birth or good 
mothers would have secured them, they fancy that the 
supercilious air which they assume denotes their superior- 
ity to the "vulgar herd;" while the truth is that, although 
the vulgar herd may be in every way unfitted for com- 
panionship with them, they know enough to discern be- 
tween sterling gold and its sham, and to pronounce with 
Thackeray that all pretence is snobbery, "pur et simple" 

" What do people say of me?" asked one of these women 
who knew that her frequent rudenesses were commented 
upon. 

"It is not alwavs agreeable to hear what is said of one," 
was the answer of the kindhearted person of whom the 
question had been asked ; and who, in repeating the con- 
versation, added, " I would have told her if I had ever 
heard one good word said of her, but I never have." 

An American author writes as follows: 

" I once met two ladies, moving in what is considered 
our best society, one of whom impressed me in every wav, 
by her carriage, her movements, her manners, as a woman 
of gentle birth and good breeding. Inquiring about her, 
I was informed that her grandmother had kept a green- 
grocer's shop, and, receiving the information as a fact, I 
recalled the housemaid grandmother of the Earl of Guild- 
ford and the Marquis of Bute, and the goodness of heart 
which, with her beauty, helped to raise her from a peasant's 
life. It was not until several years had passed that I 
learned the ' green-grocer grandmother 7 was an invention 
of some envious rival, and that if any woman in America 



180 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

has blue blood in her veins, this charming representative 
of American women has. Quite in contradistinction to her 
is the other. Her manners would be called bad if she were 
a kitchen-maid. She illustrates a class who, by accident, 
find themselves in society, or who, finding themselves there, 
copy the manners described in English novels as belonging 
to the ( haute volee,' by authors who do not know enough 
of English high-life to make their titled characters address 
each other in proper terms, and who ignorantly fancy that 
every titled man or woman must be supercilious; making 
them act and talk accordingly in their works of fiction. 
The truth being that the well-bred, in any society, have 
no pretence nor superciliousness." 

Raskin says: A perfect gentleman is never reserved, 
but sweetly and entirely open, so far as it is possible for 
him to be, though in a great many respects it is impossible 
that he should be open except to men of his own kind. 
The true gentlewoman causes all persons whom she ap- 
proaches to feel perfectly at home with her. Indeed, this 
has been defined to be the very first characteristic of one. 

t is the parvenue rising suddenly and without training 
into her station, who seeks to awe and to keep at a distance 
those with whom she is thrown, who bows in the prome- 
nade one day, and turns her eyes away the next. Some- 
times this manner in a woman may arise from mauvaise 
honte, assumed to cover the want of ease experienced by 
its truly unfortunate possessor. The effect is the same, and 
let her not hope to escape being classed with the low-bred 
and the vulgar, until she has acquired that ease that is 
characteristic of those whose thoughts are not too much 
occupied with the effect they produce. Then she will no 
sooner pass an acquaintance without a salutation of recog- 
nition than a king or queen would. 

The higher the rank the more affable people are, was 



FASHION. 181 

well said by the artist Sully, while in England ; for in the 
highest circles of rank the ill-bred are never tolerated, un- 
less they conceal their deficiencies. If they have not the 
polish of genuine politeness, they must have the varnish 
of its counterfeit. Thus, these circles are called exclusive 
circles. 

Some one has said, it is easy to be exclusive if you are 
willing to be dull; but there is an exclusiveness which is 
sometimes complained of, that is a desirable exclusiveness, 
and by no means dull. When those in whom heroic dis- 
positions are native possess that love of the beautiful in 
conduct as well as in other things, and that delight in the 
intercourse of refined and cultivated minds which leads 
them to exclude coarse natures, whose acts, and speech, 
and manners, grate upon the finely-attuned cords of their 
sensibilities and turn harmony into discord, then exclu- 
siveness becomes praiseworthy, and is no longer bad form. 

Fashion, as has already been quoted from Emerson, is 
an attempt to organize beauty of behavior, and where the 
attempt has not succeeded, where those who are at the head 
of social life do not encourage all efforts to stimulate the 
growth and the spread of refined taste, there will be found 
a society of snobs. 

The best society pardons much to genius and special 
gifts, but, being in its nature a convention, it loves what 
is conventional, or what belongs to coming together. That 
makes the good and the bad of manners, namely, what 
helps or hinders fellowship. It hates sharp points of char- 
acter, hates rude, egotistical, solitary and gloomy people, 
whilst it values all peculiarities that do not interrupt its 
harmony as in the highest degree refreshing. And besides 
the general infusion of wit to heighten civility, the direct 
splendor of intellectual power is ever welcome in the best 
society. One secret of success in it is a certain heartiness 



182 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

and sympathy; yet it is true that fashion has many classes 
and many rules of probation and admission, and these not 
always the best. There is not only the right of conquest 
which genius claims, the individual demonstrating his 
natural aristocracy, best of the best, but less claims will 
pass for the time ; for fashion loves lions, and often passes 
over their defects. 

Good manners then, as we have seen, facilitate inter- 
course, free us from impediments, aiding, as a railway aids 
travelling, by getting rid of all avoidable obstructions of 
the road ; and also, as we have seen, the power of fashion 
is just in proportion to the importance that it gives to 
manners. Where the manners are bad, no society can be 
improving. Fashion becomes an insolent pretence — a 
humbug — where rudeness is admitted and impertinence is 
tolerated. It then holds the same relation to true fashion 
that counterfeit gold holds to sterling gold. The lovers 
of the genuine avoid it, as they avoid all shams. They 
seek the sterling fashion which Emerson defines as funded 
talent. Its objects may oftentimes be frivolous, or it may 
be objectless, but its nature is neither, frivolous nor acci- 
dental. It unbars its doors instantaneously to a natural 
claim of its own kind. Sterling fashion understands 
itself; good breeding and personal superiority, of what- 
ever country, readily fraternize with those of every other. 
Numbers of our American women of worth who have 
enjoyed the brilliant society of European courts, and 
whose ancestral connections " shone as stars " at our 
"Republican Court" in the days of Washington, avoid 
all fashionable society in America, because the currency of 
fashion is so adulterated here that they cannot otherwise 
prevent its worthless brassy coins being imposed upon 
them for those of the pure gold which they alone value. 

Sterling fashion rests on reality, and hates nothing so 



STERLING FASHION. 183 

much as pretenders ; she gives over the laws of behavior 
into the charge of her ministers and apostles, and confides 
to them the task of separating the spurious coin of her cur- 
rency from the real gold. Good sense, character, and strong 
will are her ministers. They are always in the fashion, 
let who will be unfashionable. Deference to riches or to 
position forfeits all privilege of nobility in her ranks. 
Such are underlings ; avoid them ; speak only with their 
masters. Avoid that company where you cannot preserve 
the same attitude of mind and reality of relation which 
you bear with your daily associates, continues Emerson. 

Let those who scoif at fashion, bear in mind the,differ- 
ence that exists between the true queen, whose subjects are 
of the true aristocracy, and the pretender, whose rule 
extends over the sham aristocracy. The love of cultivated 
manners, the respect that respects the rights of others, 
inspires and dictates the commandments of true fashion. 
Purse-pride, worldly pomp and selfishness dictate the 
creed of its counterfeit. 

What if the false queen sometimes bows true ladies and 
gentlemen out of her presence? The real queen recog- 
nizes them at a glance, and makes room for them among 
their own kind. 

The reason Ruskin gives for the different impressions 
which the well-bred man makes upon his fellow-beings is 
one that is worth regarding: To men of his own kind 
he can open himself by a word, or syllable, or glance; but 
to men not of his kind he cannot open himself, though he 
tried it through an eternity of clear grammatical speech. 
Whatever he said a vulgar man would misinterpret ; no 
words that he could use would bear the same sense to the 
vulgar man that they do to him. Therefore, men and 
women possessing this fineness of nature, this sensitive 
organization, are more liable to be misunderstood and mis- 



18 t SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

represented than are those who are wanting in these quali- 
ties. But as their constant and intelligent sensibility is 
understood and appreciated by their "own kind," they 
lose nothing in losing the appreciation of natures with 
which they have nothing in common. 

A lady in England, living in a princely establishment, 
wishing to show some attention to a man outside of her 
circle, who had lent his influence in a cause that she was 
interested in, gave him a verbal invitation to spend an 
evening with her. 

" You are very kind, mum, but I have already seen 
your house, and it wouldn't be worth my while to go over 
it again." 

The lady, in repeating it, withheld the name, but said 
she felt as if she had been struck with a pistol-shot at this 
miscomprehension of her motives. 

"We are the makers of manners, Kate," says young 
King Henry to his princess, and every man and every woman 
who possesses that sensitiveness which Ruskin declares 
to be the sign of nobleness, that fineness of nature which, 
in his opinion, creates the true gentleman, the true gentle- 
woman, will, almost unconsciously to themselves, become 
in a degree the makers of manners in the circles in which 
they move. We have in mind now a family of sisters 
whose refinement and courtesy in speech and manners has 
influenced for years, without their knowledge, many with 
whom they have been thrown. The worst that has ever 
been said of them is that they are exclusive; and they 
have won the right to exclude the ill-bred and the igno- 
rant from their homes. 

Nothing is so contagious as bad example; if good exam- 
ple were as much so, then would we plead with all true 
gentlewomen to submit to the annoyances of intercourse 
with those who show their need of the refining influences 



SNIFFINESS. 185 

of good examples. But alas! woman, like man, is, as has 
been said, the creature of habit, especially of bad habits. 
In other words, it is the bad examples which carry with 
them the greatest amount of influence. 

Who is there who has not been thrown with some one 
woman, at least, who, from bad training, displays either 
rudeness, or what a writer in a recent number of Scribner 
calls "sniffiness?" And as, unfortunately, those persons 
who possess fineness of nature do not predominate in this 
world, either premeditated rudeness or sniffiness becomes 
the fashion with those of congenial natures, in her especial 
clique. This writer says: Some persons are born sniffy, 
some achieve sniffiness, and some have sniffiness thrust 
upon them. According to Ruskin's ideas, wherever 
sniffiness, or premeditated rudeness, is found, there will be 
found either low birth or some defect in early training, 
with that coarseness of nature which breeds vulgarity of 
conduct. It would be as impossible for a true gentle- 
woman to be habitually rude, or even "sniffy/' as it 
would be for a thoroughbred horse to possess the qualities 
of a plough-horse. The human being shows blood and 
breeding as well as other animals. 

Many years ago, a clergyman in a town in Massachu- 
setts, annoyed by the levity of some young persons in his 
congregation, stopped in the midst of his sermon, fixed his 
eyes upon them, and said, solemnly: "When I see young 
men laughing and whispering in the house of God, I make 
up my mind that they are of mean birth, low parentage, 
and that their natures are coarse, not subject to refine- 
ment." 

In the same way the sniffy woman, wherever she is 
found, abroad or at home, impresses the true gentlewoman 
as of low origin. If born sniffy, one of her parents must 
have been sniffy before her, thus showing low birth ; if 



16h SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

she has achieved sniffiness, she displays the bad nurture, 
or home training, that she has had ; and if she has had 
sniffiness thrust upon her, nine cases out of ten you will 
find that to the absence of that sensitiveness of nature 
which belongs to the true gentlewoman, she adds that 
innate vulgarity which leads its possessor to resent upon 
others the "sniffiness" that she has been subjected to. 

Some men and women are too coarsely made to appre- 
ciate the delicacy of beautiful carriage and customs. 
Moral qualities rule the world, but at short distances the 
senses are despotic. The flower of courtesy does not very 
well bide handling, but when the anatomist who dissects 
it does it for the good of society, he finds that it has in it 
an intellectual quality. To the leaders of men, the brain, 
as well as the heart, must furnish a proportion. The 
creators of fashion, the centres of society, on which it 
returns for fresh impulses, are found among the generous, 
the heroic, the brave. Among them there may often be, 
as Emerson says there is, some absurd inventor of chari- 
ties; some friend of Poland; some Phillelene ; some "guide 
and comforter of the unfortunate or the oppressed ; some 
fanatic who plants shade-trees for the good of the second 
and third generation, when he himself shall have passed 
away ; and among them will always be found those who, 
disregarding some of fashion's laws, are a law unto them- 
selves, in its true spirit, in every act of their lives. Their 
examples, their lives, live and bear fruit when they are in 
the grave; the trees they plant afford them no shade, but 
they do not plant them for themselves. Nor can men 
benefit those that are with them as they can benefit those 
who come after them ; for of all the pulpits from which 
human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which 
it reaches so far as from the grave. 

Eichard Hooker says : " To the best and wisest people 



LIVING fOR OTHERS. 187 

the world is continually a fro ward opposite; and a curious 
observer of their delects and imperfections ; their virtues 
afterwards it as much admireth. The envious world likes 
not the sound of a living man's praise. Wait, ye just, ye 
merciful, ye tender-hearted, ye faithful ! Wait but for a 
little while, for this is not your rest." 

And a greater preacher than Hooker adds his testi- 
mony : I know that there is no good in them, but for a 
man to rejoice and to do good in his life. There is nothing 
better than that a man should rejoice in his own works. 
Again, I considered all travail, and every right work, 
that for this a man is envied of his neighbor. Marvel not 
at the matter, for he that is higher than the highest re- 
gardeth, and these be higher than they. 

But how shall we do good ? how shall we live for others ? 
some readers may ask, who feel that not even one talent 
has been intrusted to their care to increase and multiply. 

There are myriad ways. We go through this world but 
once, and every hour of our lives is filled with opportu- 
nities that pass away never to return again ; therefore, any 
good thing that we can do, any kindness that we can show 
our fellow-beings, let us not defer or neglect it, for we shall 
not come this way again. 

Happy is he who has learned this one thing, to do the 
plain duty of the moment quickly and cheerfully, wher- 
ever and whatever it may be. 

He who meets the thousand and one daily frets and 
annoyances of life, and takes them so far as he must, and 
avoids them so far as he may, and bears them with pa- 
tience and cheerfulness as part of the discipline of life, is 
living a heroic life before God that will not be lost upon 
his fellow-being's. 

" His life, that has been dropped aside 
Into Time's stream, may stir the tide 
In rippled circles spreading wide." 



188 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

He who bears unmerited reproaches, never-ending mis- 
understanding of his motives and actions, constant mis- 
representations of his aims and ends by his own kin, or by 
the envious, the jealous and the unjust, without allowing 
his nature to become warped, his temper to become spoiled, 
his heart to grow callous, he is bearing all in a way to 
honor God and do good to mankind. The more grand 
and noble the soul, the more it will be wounded by the 
blows of injustice. It is a grand thing for a man to carry 
himself bravely through such blows — to endure silently 
when he is picked at and pierced and wronged. It is a 
great thing to see men and women with tender hearts, who 
feel keenly every act of injustice, every misinterpretation 
of impulses that are heaven-born in their souls, training 
themselves to bear all, and to smother the agony that en- 
durance of them brings. Such men and women are not 
living in vain. 

" The cry wrung from their spirit's pain, 
May echo on some far-off plain, 
And guide a wanderer home again." 

It is a great thing to see sensitive men and women (the 
unarmed among the well armed, the unveiled where all are 
masked), bringing real faith and conscientiousness to bear in 
overcoming their sensitiveness; receiving the chastisements 
of discipline as heaven-sent, and so profiting by them as to 
almost put it out of the power of any man to hurt them. 
That is to say, where a man has the testimony of his own 
conscience that his aims are right, that he means always to 
do the right things, and feels confidence that he has the 
power to maintain himself in the right, he can live beyond 
the reach of any harm that men can inflict upon him. 
Such a man is not living for himself alone. 

" His heart may throb in vast content, 
Well knowing that it was but meant 
As chord in one great instrument." 



DINNERS. 189 

They who bear their failures, whether of high endeavor, 
earnest resolve, or baffled plans, with that courage which 
leads them to strive again and again for the victory that is 
promised only to those who endure to the end — they are 
living for others quite as much as for themselves. 

u Fail — yet rejoice, because no less 
The failure that makes thy distress 
May teach another full success." 

They who have hearts to feel for another's woes are not 
living in vain ; they who can spare time from the claims 
of home and society to weep with those who weep — time 
to strive to pour the balm of sympathy into unclosed 
wounds ; time to strive to show those who are stricken with 
a deep sorrow or a heavy trouble, how work, which oc- 
cupies not only the hands but the brain, will help them to 
bear their burdens as nothing else can, they are not living 
in vain. It requires a great deal of resolution to break 
away from the apathy of grief ; but the effort once made, if 
there is anything in the individual, he or she will never 
turn back. After work, real work, work with the hands, 
head and heart — after this will come trust, and with trust 
will come peace. 

" Rouse to some work of high and holy love, 

And thou an angel "s happiness shalt know — 
Shalt bless the earth, while in the world above 

The good begun by thee shall onward flow, 
In many a branching stream, and wider grow. 

The seed that in these few and fleeting hours 
Thy hands unsparing and unwearied sowed, 

Shall deck thy grave with amarathine flowers, 
And yield thee fruit divine in Heaven's immortal bowers." 



190 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 



CHAPTER VI. 



RECEPTIONS — PARTIES— BALLS— YOUNG MEN UNDER TWEN- 
TY-ONE— INFLUENCE OF SISTERS— TRUE LOVE. 

" On receiving an invitation to an evening party, an ' At Home,' 
or whatever it may happen to be, reply within a day or two at least." 
— Modem Etiquette, London. 

" The promptness with which answers are sent to all invitations, 
and to all notes, or letters, requiring answers, depends upon the good 
breeding of the person addressed. Dinner invitations should be an- 
swered as soon as they are received; all other invitations as soon as 
is possible after their reception." — From the French of Saint- Loup. 

" The whole condition of society is elevatod and improved by a due 
regard of its observances and its forms. Everything depends upon 
the home training, and upon customs, and where the custom prevails 
of sending tardy replies to notes of invitation, even well-bred per- 
sons grow careless. There are no general rules without exceptions, 
and there are cases in which answers are delayed. The difference, 
then, shown between the well-bred person and one who has not re- 
ceived proper instruction in such matters is, that the former apolo- 
gizes for the delay. Those who have been correctly trained know 
when they have been guilty of a solecism in manners, and they hapten 
to repair it, quite as much out of self-respect as from courtesy. ' Each 
of us has an inner spiritual, perhaps, unconscious life in its deeper 
parts, which reveals itself in our outer life and actions.' Untrained 
characters will not willingly submit to any rules." — Mrs. Moore. 

Dr. Verdi says: "The summit of woman's growth is attained at 
the age of twenty-one, while that of man is put at twenty-five. 
Legislators, recognizing this difference, have decreed that her ma- 
joritj' shall be at eighteen, while that of the man is decreed at twenty- 
one." Herr Teufelsdrockh's hard philosophy recognized the difference 
when he said: ' I have heard affirmed, surely in jest, by no unphil- 
anthropic persons, that it were a real increase of human happiness 
could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, 



RECEPTIONS. 191 

or rendered otherwise invisible, and there left to follow their lawful 
studies and callings till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of 
twenty-five.' With which, suggestion, at least as considered in the 
light of a practical scheme, I need scarcely say that I in nowise co- 
incide. Nevertheless, it is plausibly urged that as young ladies are, 
to mankind, precisely the most delightful in those years, so young 
gentlemen do then attain their maximum of detestability. Such 
gawks are they, and foolish peacocks, and yet with such a vulturous 
hunger for self-indulgence, so obstinate, obstreperous, vain-glorious; 
in all senses froward and so forward." — CaidyWs Sartor Resartus. 

Morning receptions, as they are called, but more cor- 
rectly speaking, afternoon parties, are generally held from 
four to seven o'clock. Occasionally a sufficient number 
for a cotillion arrange to remain after the crowd has gone. 
In either case the dress is the same : for men morning 
dress, as before given ; for ladies demi-toilette, with or 
without bonnet. Xo low-necked gown nor short sleeves 
should be seen at a day reception, nor white neck-ties and 
dress coats. The material of costumes or toilettes may be of 
velvet, silk, muslin, gauze or grenadine, according to the 
season of the year and the taste of the wearer, but her 
more elegant jewelry and laces should be reserved for eve- 
ning parties. The corsage of the dress can be open in 
front, with standing or falling laces or sheer ruffles. Gants 
de Suede at all day receptions are de rigueur. 

The refreshments are generally light, tea, coffee, choco- 
late, frozen punch, claret punch, ices, fruit and cakes. Fre- 
quently a cold collation is spread after the lighter refresh- 
ments have been served, and sometimes the table is set 
with all the varieties, and renewed from time to time. Xo 
answers are expected to these invitations, unless B,. S. V. 
P. is on one corner. One visiting card is left by each 
person who is present, to serve for the after call. Xo calls 
are expected from those who attend. 

Those who are not able to be present call soon after. 



192 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Frequently, cards are sent on the day and the after-call 
made in due season. A matinee musicale is held at the 
same hour, or if in the summer at watering-places, they are 
frequently earlier. These are the most difficult entertain- 
ments that are attempted. 

A lady who undertakes a series of them should be en- 
dowed with the virtues of a saint, or she should at least 
possess the three requisites of St. Paul, faith, hope and 
charity, for she will need them all. Her first step will be 
to secure those persons possessing sufficient vocal and 
instrumental talent, to insure the success of the entertain- 
ment. Her next, to arrange with them a programme, as- 
signing to each, in order, his or her part. It is customary 
to commence with a piece of instrumental music, followed 
by solos, duos, quartettes, etc., with instrumental music 
interspersed, in not too great proportion. Some competent 
person is needed as an accompanist. 

The invitations may be from three to six o'clock; the 
intention of the hostess being to allow her guests an hour 
to assemble ; the music to commence precisely at four 
o'clock. The piano wheeled into the best position, and 
all in readiness, the hostess descends punctually at three 
o'clock, and takes sole charge of her drawing-room. Half- 
past three, no one has yet arrived. Soon after, a few drop 
in, and at four o'clock, though the drawing-room presents 
an animated appearance, only two of the performers* besides 
the accompanist have appeared. Here faith and hope are 
both called in, and patience also, to assist the hostess to 
conceal all nervousness or anxiety. She overhears Mrs. 
Grundy saying to Mrs. Gossyp, " I thought we were going 
to have some music; we dine at six, and I shall soon have 
to leave." " Very badly arranged," is Mrs. Gossyp's an- 
swer. At this critical moment the prima donna makes her 
appearance, and the hostess decides that she will wait no 



RECEPTIONS. 193 

lunger fur the dilatory ones, although by commencing im- 
mediately she is compelled to make changes in the pro- 
gramme. Will Miss Thumpwell oblige by playing out of 
her turn? No, Miss Thumpwell will not, she is far too 
timid to lead off, although a virgin of thirty summers. 
Will Mr. Tuuewell play that charming morceau that is 
later in the programme? Mr. Tunewell suddenly dis- 
covers that he has left his music at home, and hastens 
away to procure it. The hostess tries to be charitable, but 
she is nevertheless seized with the conviction that the 
music is up in the dressing-room. Still, she keeps a smil- 
ing face and a calm demeanor, although inwardly her in- 
dignation is at boiling heat. Would Mrs. Chanteur be so 
very kind as to sing something — any little ballad, no 
matter how simple, just to make a commencement ? Mrs. 
Chanteur louks up with surprise and reproach in her beau- 
tiful eyes. "I sing first? Do you not always lead off 
with instrumental music?" Mrs. Grundy whispers across 
to Mrs Gossyp, "Yes, you were right; very badly ar- 
ranged ; a perfect failure. Come and tell me about it to- 
morrow. I have to leave now." At this juncture the 
prima donna, who is from another city, addresses the host- 
ess : "I dare say something has gone wrong. If you 
would like to have me, I do nut in the least object to sing- 
ing first." Now the lung agony is ended, and the prima 
donna sings like an angel. Mrs. Grundv, who has reached 
the door, returns, and is so enchanted with the marvellous 
voice that she forgets her dinner. All ends su well that nu 
one remembers the attendant disagreeabilities, excepting 
the hostess, who resolves that she will try in future to con- 
tribute her share toward the pleasure and amusement of 
others in some way which will not subject her to so much 
annoyance. 

It is the duty of the hostess to maintain silence among 

13 



191 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

her guests during the performance of instrumental music, 
as well as of vocal. If any are unaware of the breach of 
good manners that they commit in talking or whispering 
at such times, she should, by a gesture, endeavor to acquaint 
them with the fact. Where this rule is disregarded, the 
hostess need not be surprised if the music should come to 
a full stop ; and she may feel quite sure if it does not, that 
it is only out of regard to her feelings as a hostess. It is 
the duty of the host to see that the ladies who sing are 
accompanied to the instrument, that the leaves of the music 
are turned for them, and that they are conducted back to 
their seats again. When not intimately acquainted with 
them, the hostess herself should join in expressing gratifi- 
cation. Though it is the province of the hostess to desig- 
nate in turn each one who sings, it is a mark of appreci- 
ation when others ask the singer for a second song, and 
there is no hostess who will not appreciate all attentions 
paid to those who are contributing to the pleasure of her 
guests. 

When the programme has not been previously arranged, 
and the matinee or soiree is more informal, care must be 
taken that all the performers receive equal attention. It is 
always painful to see the jealousy that too often exists among 
the gifted in song. They should remember that true artists 
never fail to show a generous appreciation of each other's 
talents, and not criticize and search for defects where they 
can find anything to praise. 

When a lady who sings well is invited for the first time 
to a house, discretion must be observed in asking her to 
sing. There are some women who are never so happy as 
when ministering to the pleasure of those around them; 
there are others who would feel that they were being made 
use of, in a way they would rebel against, if they were 



PARTIES. 195 

asked to contribute to the general enjoyment when they 
had come out for their own amusement. 

It is often said that people who entertain receive no 
thanks. On the contrary there are no persons more appre- 
ciated in society than are those who contribute to its amuse- 
ment; but they must understand the art of making their 
entertainments attractive. The better they succeed, the 
more must they expect to be abused by all whom they do 
not invite, who are in the habit of indulging in abuse of 

' CO 

those they feel to be their superiors in worth or position. 
It is this class of people who are the most anxious to have 
it thought that hospitality is a virtue which is not appre- 
ciated, and that those who are entertained abuse their en- 
tertainers; but let no one be deterred from doing his or 
her share towards contributing to the pleasure of the young 
by any fears of meeting with such a return. . Xo persons 
escape ill-natured comment of their actions, and thev who 
witness the happiness they confer upon the young by con- 
tributing to their amusement can well atford to bear the 
abuse of the envious ; while he who hoards his money with 
a miser's care, receives no compensation for that censure 
of his niggardliness which he merits. 

Thackeray, in enumerating the various forms of snob- 
bery which are found in society, ends as follows : " Osten- 
tation is snobbish. Too great profusion is snobbish. There 
are people who are more snobbish than all these whose 
defects are above mentioned, viz., those individuals who 
can, and don't entertain at all.'" 

In cities where certain rules of traditionary etiquette 
are not observed, to the extent that five or six persons in 
one family accept invitations for the same entertainment, 
it becomes necessary for the hostess to send her invitations 
only to those members of the family whom she wishes to 
see, reserving the others for another occasion. 



103 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

In one instance, where a lady inviting, urged a fourth 
member of a family, who was an especial favorite of hers, 
to come to a German she was going to give, the young lady 
answered : " It is not possible for me to expose myself again 
to the annoyance that I experienced last week, in finding my 
brothers, my sister and myself all seated in a row, as we 
were at Mrs. Blank's dance, when the cotillion opened ; 
and you know that more than three in one family ought 
never to accept an invitation." 

In the same city, a lady was asked how she dared invite 
some members of a family, leaving out others. The ques- 
tion never would have been asked had the lady asking it 
understood the relations that existed between the enter- 
tainers and the entertained, as generally understood. A 
lady in making out her list is not obliged to ask any one to 
whom she is not indebted for hospitalities or courtesies, of 
one sort or another. They are the first whom she enters 
upon her list, and they are the only ones who have any claim 
upon her for invitations. Should she neglect such, they 
would have a right to feel " cut," but no others should feel 
so. All, beyond those to whom the hostess is indebted, are 
asked, for reasons which alone concern herself or family, 
and to feel annoyed at being left out, after you have once 
been invited, is about as reasonable as to feel affronted 
with the friend who does not offer the use of her horses 
and carriages to those of her friends who have not any, 
whenever they would like to have them. She may take 
one friend one day, another friend on another day ; and 
most certainly she is the one to say which friend, as well 
as which day, she will take. Quite another thing is it, 
when one inviting leaves out those to whom she is indebted 
for recent attentions, asking her friends generally, or even 
asking only a few out of the same circles. To suppose an 
imaginary incident : should a lady give an entertainment 



PARTIES. 197 

of peculiar elegance, selecting out of a large circle not 
more than twenty or twenty-five persons, and should four 
out of that number come from one family, and the same 
family immediately after give an entertainment of a much 
less elegant and exclusive nature, omitting; to invite even 

O 7 O 

so much as one member of the family first inviting, while 
all whom they did invite were the companions of the 
young persons excluded, in such a case the family so 
treated would have reason to wonder at the want of the 
first principles of kind feeling and courtesy betrayed. 
Still even then, the remissness should be passed over with- 
out any further notice than self-respect would demand. 
The persons so neglected should fulfil all the amenities of 
social life as far as possible, should exchange calls as usual, 
and speak with civility when meeting, but no further in- 
vitations should be extended until so marked a slight had 
been atoned for by a courtesy of some kind. This illus- 
tration also exemplifies one of those cases where Christian 
forbearance would be misunderstood. 

In London it is a common thing for would-be grand 
dames, occupying for the season the houses of noblemen, 
to send out ball invitations to long lists of persons whom 
they do not know, and to whom their names are unknown. 
Such a thing is never heard of in the United States. The 
invitations, if sent, would not be accepted by people mov- 
ing in our best society ; but in London it is constantly 
done. In our cities, it is the oldest resident who makes 
the first advance in exclusive circles, unless circumstances 
make it the province of the latest comer to take the ini- 
tiative. Exceptions to this general rule are made when 
invitations are given to meet a common friend visiting the 
newest comer; when invitations are asked for older resi- 
dents, who have expressed a wish to make the acquaintance 
of the lady inviting ; and when many friends in common 



198 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

make it agreeable to the new-comer to include those who, 
no longer entertaining themselves, have expressed a feeling 
of delicacy in reference to making the first call upon those 
who do entertain. 

One need never be afraid of civilities bein£ misunder- 
stood by ladies and gentlemen, and any lady, moving in 
the same class of circles with another whom she may wish 
to invite to her house, should not be prevented by fear of 
being misunderstood, or of encountering rudeness, from 
bestowing her attentions where she wishes to bestow them, 
even although age or priority of residence has not con- 
ferred upon her the privilege of doing so. An invitation 
or an attention of any description gives evidence of that 
kind feeling which persons of gentle breeding appreciate 
too well to misunderstand. It may be declined, and pos- 
sibly the reason not given at length ; but no mistake can 
be made by the noble-hearted in the genuineness of the 
kind feeling that prompts the attention ; and to doubt that 
it is so, is to^ throw discredit upon some of the best im- 
pulses of human nature, and to discourage that hospitality 
which Scripture enjoins. It is true that it requires a cer- 
tain amount of moral development to comprehend mag- 
nanimity and not to look behind it for selfish motives, as 
mean natures always do. Those who misinterpret acts of 
kindness should not forget that they give evidence of a 
want of nobleness of nature in so doing. Very often it is 
the dormant evil in our own hearts which we are most 
ready to suspect in others. 

To return to musical parties given in the daytime. The 
dress is the same as at a reception, only that bonnets are 
more generally dispensed with. Those who have taken 
part often remain for a hot supper. It is well known that 
no exercise develops hunger more than that of si nging. The 
exhaustion produced by the prolonged action of the vocal 



PARTIES. 199 

organs requires nourishing food, and even stimulants. 
Morning and afternoon parties in the country, or at water- 
ing-places, are of a less formal character than in cities. 
The hostess introduces such of her guests as she thinks 
most likely to be mutually agreeable. Music or some 
amusement is essential to the success of such parties. 

Ladies wear various materials, black velvet skirts with 
embroidered batiste polonaises, bunting costumes, jaunty 
hats or pretty fanciful bonnets, and carry parasols. Gentle- 
men wear summer morning dress, as in making calls. (See 
Chap. II.) The collation is often served in tents, and 
those assembled stroll over the grounds, or sit on the piazzas 
when the weather is fine, instead of remaining within 
doors. 

For yachting parties, young ladies wear either flannel 
suits of navy blue, or white, plainly but prettily trimmed 
with woollen braid, jaunty sailor hats, gants de Suede, and 
thick boots. A large parasol is necessary for comfort, A 
black silk suit is the next desirable costume to one of 
flannel. Warm shawls should be provided, no matter how 
oppressive the day. The wind is as changeable as the fair 
women who trust to it, and a yacht may put out to sea in 
a calm to return in a gale. 

Croquet, lawn-tennis and archery costumes are made to 
suit the taste of the wearer ; and parties of this description 
are of the most informal nature. It is necessary that 
strangers should be introduced, and the hostess should 
never neglect this duty. If she does not want to take 
such a responsibility, she should ask only those who are 
acquainted. 

Evening parties, balls and dinners are of a much more 
formal character than the entertainments which have been 
mentioned. They require evening dress ; although for a 
dinner a lady's dress should be less elegant than for a ball. 



200 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

and she should wear less jewelry. French women often 
wear high corsage, with short sleeves. English women, 
who once never failed, even at family dinners, to appear 
decollete (some of them distressingly so), now often wear 
gowns that are high, or cut square in the neck. Ameri- 
cans follow their own inclination, sometimes adopting one 
custom, sometimes another; but of late years evening dress 
is almost as much worn at grand dinners as at balls, only 
the material is not of so diaphanous a character. Lace 
and muslin dresses are out of place. 

Invitations are sent from ten days to two weeks pre- 
viously, and should be answered immediately, as has 
been already stated. The requisites for a successful ball 
are good music and plenty of dancing men. 

"The advantage of the ball/' says an English writer, "is 
that it brings young people together for a sensible and 
innocent recreation, and takes them away from silly if not 
bad ones ; that it gives them exercise, and that the general 
effect of the beauty, elegance, and brilliance of a ball is to 
elevate rather than to deprave the mind." An American 
journalist has recently handled the subject in a very differ- 
ent manner; and although the saying "evil to him who 
evil thinks" still holds good, there is much in his article 
to draw the attention of parents to the possible effect of the 
"round dance" upon their sons, if not upon their daugh- 
ters. At least, let us not be the only nation that confines 
their ball-room dancing to waltzes, as is done in some of 
our cities. There should be, as formerly, an equal number 
of waltzes and quadrilles, which would give an opportunity 
for those who object (or whose parents object) to round 
dances, to appear on the floor. 

Four musicians are enough for " a dance." (The present 
form of speaking of a ball in London is as "a dance.") The 
horn is not suitable when the dancing-room is small ; the 



BALLS. 201 

flageolet is less noisy, and marks the time equally as well. 
The piano and violin form the mainstay of the band ; but, 
of course, when the rooms are large enough, a larger band 
may be employed. The dances should be arranged before- 
hand, and for large balls, cards are printed with a list of 
the dances. Abroad, every ball opens with a waltz, fol- 
lowed by a quadrille, and these are succeeded by galops, 
lancers, quadrilles, and waltzes in turn. 

The custom has gone by of the host and hostess receiving 
together; but it is the duty of the host to remain within 
sight until after the arrivals are principally over, that he 
may be easily found by any one seeking him. The same 
duty devolves upon the sons, who for that evening must 
give up their little flirtations, and share their attentions 
with all. Nothing looks more underbred than to see a 
young man under his parents' roof devoting himself during 
an entire evening to one lady, or sharing his attentions 
with only two or three. The daughters, as well as the 
sons, will look after partners for the young ladies who 
desire to dance, and they will try to see that no one is 
neglected before they join the dancers themselves. 

Gentlemen who are introduced to ladies at a ball, solely 
for the purpose of dancing, wait for their recognition before 
speaking with them upon meeting afterwards, but they 
are at liberty to recall themselves by lifting their hats in 
passing, as well-bred foreigners do upon entering a railway 
carriage where ladies are seated, who are entire strangers 
to them. In England, a ball-room acquaintance rarely 
goes any farther, until they have met at more balls than 
one. In the same way a man cannot, after being intro- 
duced to a young lady to dance with, ask her for more than 
two dances the same evening. On the Continent it is the 
same. Mamma would interfere there, and ask his inten- 
tions if he did so. 



202 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

At the end of every dance, gentlemen offer their right 
arm to their partners, and at least take one turn around 
the room before consigning them to their chaperons. A 
young man who can dance, and will not dance, ought to 
stay away from a ball. Who has not encountered that 
especial type of an illbred man, who lounges around door- 
ways or strolls through a suite of rooms, looking as if there 
were not a creature present worth dancing with ? 

The lady with whom a gentleman dances last is the one 
whom he takes out to supper. Therefore, he can make no 
engagements to take out any other, unless his partner is 
already engaged. Balls are meant for dancing, not eating; 
and a man should limit himself to two glasses of cham- 
pagne, a lady to one, says " The Man in the Club Window," 
in his excellent book on the habits of good society, adding: 
"Be careful of what you do, and what you say, and how 
you dance after supper, even more so than before it;" for 
ladies are apt to attribute any license of speech or acts to 
a partiality for strong fluids, and a hostess never forgets 
when her hospitality has been abused in this way. 

It would be hard upon the lady of the house if every- 
body leaving a large ball thought it necessary to wish her 
good-night. In leaving a small dance, however, a parting 
bow is civil. 

Flirtation comes under the head of morals more than of 
manners ; still, it may be said that ball-room flirtation, 
being more open, is less dangerous than any other. 

No man of caution ever made an offer after supper; or 
if he did, he surely regretted it at breakfast the next morn- 
ing. Under such a circumstance he should summon moral 
courage to his aid, and go at once to undo what he had 
been led into doing when he was not sufficiently himself 
to realize the vast importance of the step he was taking. 

Public balls are not enjoyable unless you have your own 



BALLS. 203 

party. The great charm of a ball is its perfect accord and 
harmony; all altercations, loud talking and noisy laughter 
are doubly ill-mannered in a ball-room. Very little 
suffices to disturb the peace of the whole company. 

After a ball hasten to pay your respects to the lady who 
has entertained you. If this is not possible, send your 
card or leave it at her door. It is now quite customary 
for a lady who gives a ball, and who has no reception day 
weekly, to inclose her card in each invitation for one or 
more receptions, or a kettle-drum, in order that the after- 
calls due her may be made on that day. It is unnecessary 
to add that no cards can be left by those who are not 
present under such circumstances. 

In America, more license is used in reference to the time 
in which an after-call is due, extending in many circles 
even to two weeks ; but the call loses its significance en- 
tirely, and passes into remissness, when a longer time is 
permitted to elapse. 

The question has been asked, AVhat constitutes the dif- 
ference between an evening party and a ball? At an 
evening party there may be dancing or there may not be. 
At a ball there must be dancing. A lx>ok treating upon 
the habits of good society in London defines a ball to be 
"an assemblage for dancing of not less than seventy-five 
persons;" to which definition should be added, where the 
preparations have been made upon that scale of elegance 
which good music, embellishments of flowers, and a supper 
combined, cannot fail to secure, when the invited guests do 
their part towards the entertainment. There may be some 
persons who will be astonished to learn that any duties 
devolve upon the guests. In fact, there are circles where 
all such duties are ignored. It is the duty of every person 
who has accepted the invitation to send a regret, even if at 
the last moment, when prevented from going; and as it is 



204: SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

rude to send an acceptance, with no intention of going, 
those who so accept would do well to remember this duty. 
It is the duty of every lady who attends a ball to make 
her toilette as fresh as possible. It need not be expensive, 
but it should at least be clean ; it may be simple, but it should 
not be either soiled or tumbled. The gentlemen should, of 
course, wear evening dress. Another duty is to arrive as 
soon as possible after the hour named, when it is men- 
tioned in the invitation. No one who has witnessed the 
additional zest of enjoyment that is secured (in those 
countries where it is considered a rudeness to come much 
later than the hour named) by the prompt and almost 
simultaneous arrival of the guests, can refrain from wishing 
that so sensible a custom might be adopted in our own 
country. The hostess who attempts, in our cities, a refor- 
mation in the hours of arriving, is sometimes compelled 
to renounce it, finding that it adds to her fatigue instead 
of lessening it, from a want of punctuality in the arrival 
of the majority of the guests. Of late, there has been a 
decided improvement in some circles of our best society. 

In many places on the continent in Europe, they assem- 
ble at nine o'clock, and disperse at one o'clock. The ball 
is unusually late when the dancing is kept up until two 
o'clock. 

At balls given in royal palaces the hours of assembling 
are still earlier. A titled lady of distinction arrived late 
at a ball in Vienna (during the Exposition) that was given 
by a brother of the Emperor of Austria. The Archduke 

Charles sent Count to remind her of the breach of 

court etiquette that she had committed. She glanced at 
him rather haughtily, and answered coolly, "My arriving 
late does not prevent me from listening to any kind words 
that Her Majesty the Empress may have to say to me 
when she addresses me/' But Her Majesty did not choose 



BALLS. 205 

to approach her; and when supper was served, as she was 
about passing into the room where the royal party assem- 
bled, she was informed that no place had been reserved for 
her. Incensed, she took her departure, but probably 
when she is next summoned to a royal ball she will arrive 
at the appointed hour. 

In England many arrive late at balls, for the reason 
that so much is going on each evening during the season. 
From dinners they go to the opera, and from the opera 
frequently to several balls. The late hours observed 
there are not so wearing upon their young men as upon 
ours, for the ball-goers of society in England are not, as a 
rule, business men. The ball-goer's mornings are his own, 
to sleep as late as he pleases, and to take his breakfast as 
leisurely as he likes. 

"We are said to be given as a nation to copying the Eng- 
lish. Then why can we not copy their sensible customs, as 
well as to imitate them in customs that are not suited to 
our mode of life? 

An American gentleman of the old school, who, travel- 
ling in Europe, received a dinner invitation from Lord 
Loftus, sent by post, felt inclined to resent such a liberty; 
but was appeased upon learning that it was the custom. 
The mail is delivered hourly in London. While not 
advocating the sending of dinner invitations, or the 
answers to them by post, on account of the delay created 
here by so doing, the desirability of sending the answers 
to all other invitations by post is evident, where the invi- 
tation is sent out sufficiently long in advance. It is quite 
time that a better understanding should be arrived at con- 
cerning the requirements of true politeness than is shown 
by those who maintain that it is not the correct thing to 
answer invitations by post. Even those who cling to the 
established- customs of the past, made for a period when 



206 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

society was not so large, nor entertainments so frequent as 
now, must see how inconvenient it often is for those who 
entertain to receive the answers to invitations separately, 
each one requiring that a servant shall leave his work to 
wait upon the note-bearer, when, if the postman delivers 
them upon his rounds, they arrive with the letters, and 
make no increase of labor for servants. 

There is not the same objection to delivering invitations 
by private messengers that there is to sending the replies 
to those invitations in the same way; then why can it not 
be understood that those who prefer to send their invita- 
tions by servants are willing to receive their answers by 
post, as well as those who send them by post ? 

Let those who give entertainments recall the constant 
ringing; of the door-bell with answers, from the time that 
the invitations were issued, up to the arrival of the guests, 
and they, we are sure, will be willing to move in the 
reform, if they possess that independence of character 
which is necessary to the carrying out of any such reforma- 
tion. The following letter, which has been going the 
rounds of the papers, must not discourage any of those 
who have already adopted the sensible English custom of 
answering invitations by post: 

My attention was a while ago attracted to an article in 
the Home Journal, headed " Society in Patagonia. " The 
writer asserted that Patagonia is the most provincial city 
in the world of its size ; more so than any other city of 
half its size even. I felt disposed to deny this statement 
then, as it seemed to cast an undeserved reflection of igno- 
rance and narrow-mindedness upon the fair and beloved 
city of my birth ; but now, after returning to it after a 
prolonged absence, I find it worthy of its reputation for 
provincial ways, and provincial forms of thought, and for 



BALLS. 207 

everything that is provincial in the extreme. Here must 
have dwelt that worthy Dutchman who, upon being re- 
monstrated with by a neighbor for carrying his flour from 
the mill in one end of his sack, and a bushel of stones in 
the other end, to keep the balance true, answered: " This 
way is goot enough for me; mine fader did carry his flour 
this way, and mine grandfader pefore him ; and I will do 
as mine fader and mine grandfader did do." Shortly 
after my return I received an invitation to a party or ball 
that was given in honor of two charming brides who had 
just returned from their bridal tours, and upon the card 
of invitation I noticed, " Please answer by post." How 
sensible! was my first thought. This secures a prompt 
answer, lightens the labor of mine host's (that is to be) 
servants, enables me to drop my reply in the post on my 
way to the club, and suits all concerned admirably. But 
alas! upon my arrival at the club in question, I found an 
unusual degree of animation prevailing — a sort of debating 
society, in fact, over the very point that T had so hastily 
decided in my mind as one that would suit every one. 
"I am not going to be dictated to as to the way and the 
time that my answer is sent. I shall send it as I please, 
and when I please ; I'll have them to know that," said 
one. " What kind of hospitality is that," asked another, 
"which limits a man's stay from ten to one o'clock? 
Zounds ! if I am to be sent off when the clock strikes one, 
as a child is sent to bed, I'll stay at home." " I don't 
keep two-penny stamps in my pocket, like a dry goods 
clerk," said another, " and I do keep a valet. By Jove ! 
I'll tell you what I'll do ; I'll put a stamp on and send it 
by Jeames, and madam will never know but that the 
postman left it." Here a loud and unanimous guffaw 
gave evidence of the approbation with which this proposal 
was received. No, not entirely unanimous, for there was 



208 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

one man other than myself who did not participate in the 
laugh. He looked gravely up over his glasses, and said : 
" What is the use of placarding yourself as a boor? If a 
lady throws open her house for guests, she has a perfect 
right to make the request which this lady has made ; and 
not one of those whom she thus invites is justifiable in 
showing her the rudeness that it would be to send her an 
answer in any other way than she requests. I have 
nothing to say as to whether it is good form to ask for 
answers by post — I do not know much about such mat- 
ters ; but I do know that in London society, men and 
women know the advantage of sending answers in that 
way so well that they don't wait to be asked." Jeames's 
master, who had never been abroad, but who affected 
English style in everything, opened his eyes to their full- 
est extent. " 'Pon my word ! you don't mean to say 
that the aristocracy send their replies to invitations 
by post?" "'Pon my word, I do mean to say so," was 
the answer. "What do they keep their men-servants 
for?" was the next query. "They keep them for use, 
and to have them about when they want them ; not to be 
running from one end of London to another with answers 
to the myriad invitations they get in the season. Well- 
bred people in London are marvellously like wellbred 
people everywhere ; and one of the first requirements of 
really good society is that all invitations requiring answers 
shall be promptly answered. In my opinion, they should 
be answered as soon as they are received. Three days 
grace are given by some persons, I am told, for all but 
dinner invitations ; but what would you think of a man 
who, when you said to him, ' Will you go down to my 
box with me next week for a day's shooting ?' should take 
three days to think about it, making no answer, and then 
meeting you, should say, 'I will go down to your box- for 



BALLS. 209 

a clay's shooting next week/ Would you think him as 
well bred a man as the one who answered you on the 
moment, ' Thank you, I will go down with you with the 
greatest pleasure?' On the contrary, would you not 
think him decidedly uncivil?" "The cases are not at all 
parallel. No one answers a ball invitation as soon as it is 
received." was the answer. " I beg your pardon. Every 
man who lives in a whirl of engagements is obliged to 
answer his invitations at once. It is only those who now 
and then get a straggling invitation who can take the risk 
of not answering promptly. They can remember whether 
or not they have answered them, and are in no danger of 
forgetting. Business men, too, are generally very prompt 
in replying, and all men ought to be." Here Jearnes's 
master drawled out: "'The Queen ' says if there is no 
K. S. T. P. on an ' at home' invitation, and you intend 
to go, you need not send any answer." " The Queen be 

something," answered the old gentleman with the 

glasses. "We've got no Queen, God be praised; ask 
your mother, and she will tell you, as I have already told 
you, that wellbred people don't need R. S. V. P.'s to 
remind them of their duty. What Queen are you talking 
about?" The old gentleman was pacified when he found 
" The Queen " was a London serial that indorsed his own 
views. Here the first speaker growled, " I don't care 
what 'The Queen' says or what any one else says. I don't 
go by rules, and I shall answer my invitations as I please 
and when I please ; and I go nowhere where I can't stay 
as long as I please. If people wish to entertain, let them 
entertain as every one else does — as our forefathers did, 
who made their guests welcome to stay as long as they 
liked, and who would no more have dreamed of sending 
an answer by the postman than by the milkman." 

In other words, thought I, " Mine fader's way is goot 

14 



210 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

enough for me. I will cany the bushel of stones on one 
side, and the flour on the other, pecause mine fader did, 
and my grandfader pefore him." 

This is not a bad illustration of the sort of opposition 
that those who move in social reforms must expect to en- 
counter. There are always bigoted and opinionated Dutch- 
men to be found in all communities. Not even New York 
can boast that she is free from provincialism in all her cir- 
cles, and Boston, who would like to hold the sun of prog- 
ress for the illumination of the world, shows herself in 
eclipse very often by the attitude which she takes upon 
subjects of vital import. Let Americans copy the English 
in their sensible use of postal facilities, and avoid the late 
hours which are anything but sensible for a nation of busi- 
ness men. 

It will never be fashionable in America to arrive early 
at parties, as long as fashionable people, and people who 
aspire to be fashionable, imagine that it adds to their 
importance to arrive late. But if a few women of influ- 
ence in our principal cities, whose affection for their chil- 
dren causes them to hold the welfare of the rising gener- 
ation very near their hearts, would choose the early hours 
that w r ould suit their own convenience, and the health of 
our men, whose mornings are devoted to business, and give 
invitations for those hours — say from nine to one o'clock — 
ordering the music to stop precisely at one, something more 
might be effected in the way of a reformation than has yet 
been accomplished. Failing to do so, they might, by ceas- 
ing to give parties for a time, secure greater punctuality 
in the future. 

Another duty of the guests is that each one should do 
all in his or her power to contribute to the enjoyment of 
the evening* Some gentlemen would not hesitate to refuse 



BALLS. 211 

a hostess that asked to introduce him to a lady, who was 
either a stranger in the city, or who happened to be seated 
alone. And something in excuse for such a rudeness must 
be said, for the reason that our young men have the false 
idea that it is rude to leave a young lady to whom they are 
talking until some other person has joined her, and quite 
naturally they hesitate to expose themselves to the risk of 
being quartered upon an uncompanionable person for the 
entire evening. 

It is difficult to discover where and how such an idea 
had its origin. It is not binding upon any young man to 
remain one moment longer than he desires with any lady. 
By constantly moving about from one to another, when he 
feels so inclined, he gives opportunities to others to circu- 
late as freely ; and this custom, if introduced in our society, 
would go a long way toward contributing to the enjoyment 
of all. Let those who think it incumbent upon them to 
stand by the side of a woman, like a sentinel on duty, 
until relieved, look on in a European salon, and watch the 
men as they come and go ; a few minutes here, a few min- 
utes there, never hesitating to leave a lady with some com- 
panion of her own sex, whenever they desire. The sooner 
that this idea is exploded, the better for society, for what 
can be .more uncomfortable than for a young lady to feel 
that the man who is talking to her is hoping that some 
one will come to his rescue, while possibly, there are 
gentlemen whom she would prefer, and who would in 
turn gladly give a few passing moments could they but 
know that they would be free to leave at any instant that 
conversation flagged, or that they desired to join another. 
It is, indeed, strange that such false ideas of politeness 
should prevail, as to cause a man to show a real rudeness 
to his hostess, in order that he might avoid a fancied one 
to one of her guests. As long as it is so, so long must 



212 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

those who entertain, find an excuse for such breaches of 
good manners. But every hostess who feels her responsi- 
bility, and who desires that all her guests should leave her 
house feeling repaid for the trouble and expense which they 
have incurred in accepting her invitation, should appreciate 
this sensible foreign custom, and try and do her part in 
introducing it among our young men. 

A writer, in the " Home Journal," of an article entitled 
" Sensible Etiquette," touching on this subject, says : " One 
more example as to the folly of adopting rules that were 
made for quite another form of society, is found in the pre- 
vailing idea that it is rude for n gentleman to leave a lady 
at a party or ball or reception, with whom he is convers- 
ing, until some one comes up to relieve him. It would 
be interesting to know how this idea had its origin — an 
idea so conducive to the destruction of all pleasure in so- 
ciety, for, when a man has once found himself ' cornered .' 
(the favorite expression used by men under such circum- 
stances) for an hour or an evening with a girl or a woman 
who is not sympathetique or congenial, he is not going to 
run any unnecessary risks of a similar experience, and 
thereafter he often avoids many to whom he would like to 
talk for a few moments. In a society where it is not con- 
sidered a rudeness to leave after a few sentences with one, 
to exchange some words with another, there is a constant 
interchange of civilities ; and the men, being no longer in 
fear of this dreaded possibility, circulate through the room, 
going about with that charming freedom which insures the 
enjoyment of all. One cannot help wishing, after having 
marked the benefits of such freedom, that our men would 
introduce the custom here, and yet, the men would be pow- 
erless to do it without the co-operation of the women." 

"The Young Lady's Friend" suggests the mode by 
which young girls may do their part in such a reform. 



BALLS. 213 

The author says : " Inexperienced young girls keep a gen- 
tleman talking to them longer than he wishes, because they 
do not give him an opportunity to leave. They are perhaps 
standing apart from the rest of the company, and he cannot 
leave her without her remaining quite alone. If conver- 
sation drags, and you suspect that your companion wishes 
to leave you, facilitate bis departure by changing your 
position, or speaking to some lady near you, or by asking 
him to take you to some friend or chaperon."* A gentle- 
man possessing savoir faire would instantly regard the re- 
quest, unless he preferred remaining. Most ladies who 
entertain give both dancing and talking parties, and as we 
have not the large suites of apartments that they often have 
in Europe, those who wish to avoid a crush must limit 
the number of their guests 

At a ball in a European city, given by the owner of a 
palace, who had thrown open nine rooms on one floor for 
the accommodation of less than two hundred guests, an 
Englishman remarked that with such grand rooms in Lon- 
don, five hundred people at least would have been invited. 
A lady standing by added, " Yes, and five hundred more 
to pack the staircases." The remarks were called forth 
by the host having said that his wife and himself were 
always so much afraid of having a crowd, that they had 
upon this occasion invited too few, not having made allow- 
ance for so large a proportion of those who had accepted, 
being kept away by illness, or the death of relations; add- 
ing that he had received thirty such regrets upon the last 
day, from persons who had previously accepted. 



* The following requisite for a chaperon is from Muller : "On 
donne le nom de chaperon a la dame qui, pour les reunions du monde, 
se fait comme la protectrise morale d'une jeune fille. Cette dame est 
g£neralement jcnne encore, et doit jouir d'une reputation irreproach- 
able; s'il en etait autrement, le r61e pris par elle serait vraiment 
derisoire. ' ' 



214 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

At the same time, the custom of removing the furniture 
from American drawing-rooms when large balls are given, 
was commented upon. " Why, where do the dowagers 
sit ?" " Dowagers are not invited/' was the answer. " Are 
young ladies in America permitted to go to balls without 
chaperons ?" asked a matron. An American lady endeav- 
ored to explain that in some circles they were, but in others 
it was always considered necessary to provide a chaperon 
when the mother was not able to accompany her daughter; 
and that owing to the fact that our rooms are not so nu- 
merous nor so large as in European palaces, the custom had 
of late years been adopted in some cities of consigning la- 
dies to the care of young married women who danced, in 
order that the room assigned for dancing" might" only be 
occupied by dancers; and this custom was advocated on the 
ground that, if the dowagers filled the-seats in a ball-room, 
no places were left for those who danced the cotillion to sit 
down to rest. Significant glances were exchanged between 
the matrons, but the American lady maintained her ground, 
and inwardly congratulated herself on the humanity of her 
countrywomen, as her eyes rested upon the numerous cou- 
ples standing through the cotillion ; the young girls every 
now and then looking wistfully back to the seats that they 
were debarred from taking, because of the presence of these 
same dowagers. One of the matrons present narrated a 
story of Washington society that had come under her own 
notice, which had a tendency to destroy the complacency of 
the American lady. A gentleman whom she knew, the 

Marquis de , went to America to pass a few months in 

travelling, and while in Washington delivered a letter of 
introduction to one of the most prominent ladies in society 
there. The lady, after introducing her three daughters to 
him, said : "There is to be a large bail this evening at Mr. 
E 's. If you would like to go I will procure an invi- 



BALLS. 215 

tation for you, and one of my daughters will accompany 
you." The gentleman expressed his thanks and accepted. 
The lady then asked him to choose which daughter he 
would prefer, and he made his choice. As he was on the 
eve of leaving, the young lady designated the hour, saying, 
" You will come with the carriage, and the bouquet, punc- 
tually." This was the first intimation that he had received 
concerning the bouquet. Again he assented, and took his 
departure. He went to the ball, received various intro- 
ductions, had a charming time, and returned home with 
his fair charge between two and three o'clock in the morn- 
ing. Upon arriving, he was invited by the young lady to 
enter the house with her and get a cup of tea. ^Accepting 
the proffered hospitality, he went in, expecting to find 
mamma ready to receive them, but she did not make her 
appearance; and after an hour's pleasant chat he took his 
departure. The lady who told the story, added, " I asked 
the Marquis how the mother could have placed so much 
confidence in him, when he was both a foreigner and a 
stranger." He replied, "She knew perfectly well that her 
daughter was able to take care of herself, as all American 
girls seem to be; and if I had been such a scoundrel as to 
abuse her confidence, I would have known that a father or 
brother would have put a bullet through my brains." 
There are many American mothers to whom such a story 
will seem an impossibility, but unfortunately it is from 
American families of this description that foreigners get 
their ideas of us as a people. After this long digression, 
it is time to return to the duties of a hostess, which are far 
from ended when she has received her guests; although 
many in these days ignore their duties from first to last. 

The first duty of a hostess, after having seen that her 
rooms are well ventilated, well lighted, and made sure that 
the cloak rooms for the ladies and gentlemen are in proper 



216 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

order, and supplied with all their usual requisites, is to re- 
ceive her guests cordially and gracefully. In a description 
given by a newspaper reporter, of a private ball, it was 
stated that the lady " received her guests majestically." 
Empresses and queens receive graciously those who are pre- 
sented to them, and among their subjects those of the high- 
est rank receive their guests with that courtesy which a 
truly wellbred woman never fails to show to all her guests. 
If comparative strangers have accepted an invitation, the 
hostess should endeavor to make them feel that they are 
not strangers. New acquaintances should be welcomed 
with as pleasant greetings as old friends. It should be her 
object to make every one so happy that no one will wish 
that he had remained at home. It may be suggested that 
the instincts of a lady would teach her this duty without 
any instructions from books, but some women have a cold 
or haughty air, which, though assumed at first to conceal 
their mauvais horde, becomes so habitual with them that 
they are not even cognizant of it themselves. 

While the hostess is receiving, no person should remain 
beside her, excepting the members of her family who re- 
ceive with her, or such friends as she has designated to 
assist her. All persons entering should pass on to make 
room for others ; those who wish to show her any atten- 
tion seeking her later, when she is disengaged. 

It is too much to expect that a hostess will be able to 
sustain conversation with you, and have a few words for 
each entering guest, and it is very disagreeable for those 
who are entering to have to walk around trains, or to stand 
waiting for ladies to "move on." 

It often happens that there are more ladies to dance 
than gentlemen, and that those who are present, instead 
of coming forward to the relief of the hostess, assemble 
around the doors and look on, or retire into some little 



BALLS. 217 

reception-room, bay-window, or corner, there to carry on 
one of those flirtations which are the bane of society. 
Others are so thoughtful as to say to the hostess, " Make 
any use of me that you can. I shall be only too happy to 
be of service to you." Such offers should never be abused ; 
nor should a hostess who has introduced a gentleman to a 
lady who does not dance fail to relieve him in ten or fifteen 
minutes, if she finds that he feels obliged to remain until 
another gentleman takes his place. 

Introductions take place in a ball-room in order to 
provide ladies with partners, or between persons residing 
in different cities. In all other cases, permission is gener- 
ally asked before giving introductions. But where a hostess 
is sufficiently discriminating in the selection of her guests, 
not attempting to fuse circles which are entirely distinct 
and as incapable of assimilation as oil and water, those 
assembled under her roof should remember that they are, 
in a certain sense, made known to one another, and ought, 
therefore, to be able to converse freely without introduc- 
tions. 

Ladies in American cities have much more license than 
in European society, nor is this license often abused. They 
are at liberty to walk about with their partners after a dance ; 
while there, they must return to the care of their chaperons, 
or retire to the room appropriated for their use in the 
pauses of the cotillion. 

When supper is announced, the host leads the way with 
the lady to whom he wishes to show that attention, who 
may be an elderly lady, or a stranger, or a bride. The 
hostess remains until the last, with the gentleman who takes 
her to supper, unless some distinguished guest is present 
with whom she leads the way. No gentleman should ever 
go into the supper-room alone, unless he has seen every 
lady enter before him. When ladies are left unattended, 



218 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

gentlemen, although strangers, are at liberty to offer their 
services in waiting upon them, for the host and hostess are 
sufficient guarantees for the respectability of their guests. 

In England an introduction given for dancing purposes 
does not constitute acquaintanceship. With us, as in Con- 
tinental Europe, it does; and here it may be as well to 
mention that it is for this reason that ladies are expected 
in England to bow first, while on the Continent it is the 
gentlemen who give the first marks of recognition, as it 
should be here; or better still, simultaneously, when the 
recognition is simultaneous. 

An English authority says : '" It is the lady's place to 
bow first to a gentleman/' Certainly it is in England, 
where men are frequently introduced at a ball simply for 
the purpose of giving her a partner for a dance; but 
elsewhere, all over Europe, it is the man who bows first. 
In America we can afford to dispense with any such 
rule, attended as it is with numberless inconveniences. 
It is as much the man's place to bow (with our mode of life) 
as it is the woman's ; more, far more, when the man has 
been the recipient of a courtesy, such as an invitation 
from her. The one who recognizes first should be the first 
to show that recognition ; and in the case of a hostess, it is 
surely far easier for her guests to remember her face than 
it would be for her to remember the unfamiliar faces of a 
score or two of young men. We are heartily tired of the 
nonsense of those who shape their course in a republic by 
the rules of life in a kingdom, instead of by that courtesy 
which kindness of heart enjoins. Common civility also re- 
quires that those who have not been present, but who were 
among the guests invited, should when meeting the hostess 
for the first time after an entertainment, make it a point 
to express some acknowledgment of their appreciation of 
the invitation, by regretting their inability to be present. 



BALLS. 219 

Never hold a lady's hand, when dancing a round dance, 
behind you, or on your hip, or high in the air, moving her 
arm as if it were a pump-handle, as seen in some of our 
"Western cities. Such customs are offensive to wellbred 
women. 

Never forget ball-room engagements. It is one of the 
marks of good breeding to remember them scrupulously, 
never confusing them, or promising two dances to one per- 
son. It is not necessary to bow to a lady at the end of the 
quadrille ; it is enough that the gentleman offers his right 
arm, and walks half way around the room with her. He 
is not obliged to remain beside her unless he wishes to do 
so. Abroad, he leaves her with her chaperon, and here, 
he commits no rudeness by leaving her with any lady whom 
she knows, old or young. Never be seen without gloves 
in a ball-room, or with those of any other color than white, 
unless they be of a most delicate hue. Some persons 
always provide themselves with a second pair, to be used 
in case of an accident. If a lady has forgotten an engage- 
ment to dance, the one she has thus slighted must accept 
her apology. To quarrel or make a scene in society is an 
affront to every well-bred man and woman present, and 
makes one ridiculous. Good breeding and the appear- 
ance of good temper are inseparable. " Wreathed smiles," 
though deceitful, are preferable, in a ball-room at least, 
to honest frowns and coarse truths. Though not custom- 
ary for married persons to dance together in society, those 
men who wish to show their wives the compliment of such 
an unusual attention, if they possess any independence, 
will not be deterred from doing so by their fear of any 
comments from Mrs. Grundy. 

The sooner that we recover from the effects of the Puri- 
tanical idea that clergymen ought never to be seen at balls, 
the better for all who attend them. Where it is wrong for 



220 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

a clergyman to go, it is wrong for any member of his 
church to be seen. 

In leaving a ball-room before the music has ceased, if no 
member of the family is in sight, it is not necessary to look 
for them before taking your departure. Englishmen, who 
go from one ball to another, as is done night after night 
in London, dispense with all ceremonies of leave-taking. 

This innovation upon old-school customs is looked upon 
with favor by hostesses, even at receptions, where the fa- 
tigue of leave-taking is sometimes as great as at ceremo- 
nious gatherings. 

When the invitation is a first one, however, endeavor 
not to make your exit until you have thanked your 
hostess for the entertainment. It is not necessary to say 
that "it has been a great success," but you can with pro- 
priety speak of the pleasure it has afforded you. A gen- 
tleman (wearing white ducks !) at a small dancing reception 
took leave of a very beautiful young woman who was 
seated by her hostess, entirely ignoring the presence of the 
latter. It was commented upon by a bystander, when the 
hostess amiably replied : "It is not the first time that a man 
has been so bewildered by beauty as to forget his duty." 

To sum up, the requisites for an agreeable ball are, a 
well bred hostess, good ventilation, good music, a good 
supper, guests who know their duties, and not too large a 
number of them. 

When there is a crush, like those in London ball-rooms, 
where only two or three rooms are thrown open, and the 
number invited is as disproportionate to the accommoda- 
tions as it would be to ask a dinner-party of twenty-four to 
seat themselves at a table that has scarcely places for 
twelve, then let no hostess complain if young men refuse 
to dance. Invitations to such balls are not hospitalities 
but inflictions. Those invited accept, beguiled by the pros- 



BALLS. 221 

peet of enjoyment, but too often find they might as well 
look for pleasure in a torture-chamber. To require a man 
to undergo the martyrdom of a dance under such circum- 
stances, would be about as reasonable as to invite him 
into a hot " smithy " to work at an anvil on an August 
day for the amusement of seeing the sparks fly. 

A hostess is safe, however, iji inviting one-fourth more 
than her rooms will hold, as that proportion of regrets are 
sure to be received. Sensible people will not, as a rule, ex- 
pect to be invited to a ball unless they dance, or act as chap- 
erons to those young ladies who do. Some one has said that 
after a certain age, it is not only laborious to dance, but 
even to look at dancing. Our young ladies are too inde- 
pendently brought up to be in actual need of a mother's 
presence in a ball-room, and few mothers would be able to 
accompany them always. It is for other reasons that the 
absence of dowagers from ball-rooms in late years is to be 
regretted. 

Even in this age of license there are not many mothers 
in society who would permit a daughter to attend a ball 
not given in a private house, unguarded by the restrain- 
ing influence of her presence. 

A few suggestions may be added, to refresh the memories 
of those who are remiss in ball-room duties, although of 
such a nature that no one can plead ignorance of them. 
A gentleman should never attempt to step across a lady's 
train, he should walk around it. If by any accident he 
should tread upon any portion of her dress, he should in- 
stantly say, "I beg pardon;" and if, by greater careless- 
ness, he should tear it, he must pause in his course, and 
offer to take her to the dressing-room to have it mended. 

If a lady asks any favor, such as to send a servant to 
her with a glass of water, to take her in the ball-room 
when she is without an escort, to inquire whether her car- 



222 SENSIBLE ETTQUETTE. 

riage is in waiting, or any of the numerous services which 
ladies often require, no gentleman need to be told that he 
ought not to refuse her request. 

A young man who had received frequent hospitalities 
from a middle-aged married woman, was asked, upon the 
occasion of a ball at the house of a common friend, to take 
her into the drawing-room. He replied : "Excuse me, I 
am not going in until some friends whom I am waiting for 
arrive." This same young man was afterwards heard to 
express astonishment that the lady never invited him when 
she entertained. Young men who cannot remember to per- 
form the little courtesies of life, which civility requires of 
them, cannot expect that ladies will trouble their memory 
in any way concerning them. 

Gentlemen and ladies should bow as soon as they catch 
the eye of an acquaintance; after having spoken with their 
hostess. When the recognition is simultaneous, the bow 
should also be. Those ladies and gentlemen who affect 
abstraction, not speaking at once when their eyes meet 
those of an acquaintance, mark themselves as underbred, 
in the eyes of men and women of the world who have been 
trained to their duties until the performance of them has 
become instinctive. Such conduct is an unbearable affecta- 
tion, and an index of ignorance or conceit. Society makes 
no allowance for absent-minded people ; they are sure to 
be classed with the snobbish and the underbred. And it 
should be so, for had every one the disagreeable habit 
of not speaking at first sight, no one would be able to re- 
member to whom he had spoken and to whom he had not. 

A really wellbred man will remember to ask the 
daughters of a house to dance, as it is imperative to do so; 
and if the ball has been given for a lady who dances, he 
should include her in his attentions. If he knows inti- 
mately any of the young ladies present, they have a right 



BALLS. 223 

to expect to be remembered, and if he has any ambition to 
be considered a thoroughbred gentleman, he will not forget 
to sacrifice himself occasionally to those who are unsought 
and neglected in the dance. The consciousness of having 
performed a kind and Christian action will repay him. 

Nothing marks an ill bred man more than gorging at 
supper; and to take too much wine is a breach of good 
manners that is never forgotten against you, although it 
may be forgiven. 

Young ladies ought not to accept invitations for every 
dance. The fatigue is too wearing, and the heated faces 
that it induces too unbecoming. But they must be careful 
hew they refuse to dance; for unless a good reason is given, 
a man is apt to take it as an evidence of personal dislike. 
After refusing, the gentleman should not urge her to 
dance, nor should the lady accept another invitation for 
the same dance. The members of the household are ex- 
pected to see that those of their guests who wish to dance 
are provided with partners. Xo dancing chaperons can 
accept for the cotillion until the young ladies under their 
charge have partners. It would be an excellent custom 
for those who give balls to appoint either three or four 
gentlemen who do not dance as aids or stewards, or masters 
of ceremonies, to attend to the music and dancing, and to 
introduce and provide all who wish to dance with partners. 

In some European cities, all young men dancing the 
quadrille invariably ask to be presented to their vis-a-vis 
before commencing it, if she is not already an acquaintance. 
This is certainly a very civil custom, but the lady should 
then have the same privilege, as in England, of being 
the first to recognize an acquaintance made in this man- 
ner; although in our country it is not to be supposed 
that a lady would object to continuing a bowing acquain- 
tance with any man whom she has met in the house of a 



224 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

common friend, so long as his manner is civil and respect- 
ful. 

When balls are given, an awning should be provided 
for the protection of those passing from their carriages to 
the house, when the weather is bad. In all cases, a broad 
piece of carpet should be spread from the door to the car- 
riage steps. Ladies leaving should not allow gentlemen 
to see them to their carriages, unless overcoats and hats 
are on for departure. Where it is possible, a tea-room, 
separate from the supper-room, is thrown open at a ball, 
provided with tea, frozen coffee, claret or fish-house punch, 
sandwiches, plain cakes, and, later in the evening, bouillon 
and hot coffee. Where this is not possible, punch and 
cakes are served from a side table, at the end of a hall, 
and this is quite sufficient where the invited are in the 
habit of arriving two hours after they are asked. 

The supper-room is thrown open generally at twelve 
o'clock. The table is made as elegant as beautiful china, 
cut glass and an. abundance of flowers can make it. In 
Europe the suppers are generally cold, and the dishes that 
are served vary with the customs of the people. In our 
cities, they are always hot, with a few cold dishes, such as 
boned turkey, baeuf a la mode, chicken, and lobster salad, 
salmon mayonnaise and raw oysters. The hot dishes are 
oysters stewed, fried, broiled and scolloped ; chicken, sweet- 
bread and oyster croquettes, sweetbread and green peas, 
terrapins and game. It is much healthier when the ices 
are served during the evening, and not at the supper. 

When there is not a crush, ladies and gentlemen take 
their supper at the same time in most of our cities, as 
abroad; but when this is impossible, the gentlemen devote 
themselves entirely to waiting upon the ladies, and take 
their supper later; after which the supper-room is closed. 
Bouillon and ices are then sometimes served in the refresh- 



YOUNG MEN UNDER TWENTY -ONE. 225 

ment room, or passed during the cotillion, if the ball is a 
late one. It is not in good form to hand cigars at balls, 
nor to ask for anything that is not served with the supper. 
Invitations are often asked for balls, either for strangers 
in town or for young relations just going into society who 
have had no opportunity of making the acquaintance of 
the lady entertaining. 

"When such invitations are given, if to a young girl, one 
for the parents can be inclosed also, if the relations of the 
lady ay ho entertains are such with the parents as to make 
the first advances toward a visiting acquaintance incum- 
bent upon her ; but if not, the invitation should be in- 
closed with that of the- chaperon, who has intimated the 
wish to have it extended. 

When gentlemen, invited to a house on the occasion of 
an entertainment, are not acquainted with all the members 
of a family, their first duty, after speaking to their host 
and hostess, is to ask some common friend to introduce 
them to those members whom they do not know. It is 
too great a tax upon the host and hostess, occupied as they 
are in receiving, to demand the introduction from them, as 
is often done. 

Some men, it is said, accept invitations and avoid this 
duty. It would seem incredible were it not vouched for 
on good authority that they afterwards boasted of so doing. 
Such specimens of humanity remind one of Rudolf Harf- 
thal's answer to the Earl, in the play of " Dreams :" "You 
unmannerly ruffian! you have the title of a nobleman, 
but not enough self-respect even to be a gentleman !" 

Such young men must have entered society before they 
were fitted for its duties, or had the misfortune not to have 
had good home training. 

The following incident took place within the memory of 
the present generation, in a city not far distant from New 

15 



226 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

York. A young man who had been invited to a house, for 
the first time, neglected having himself presented to the 
host. At his departure, he was followed from the room 
by the host, who said, " Excuse me, I cannot allow you to 
leave my house without introducing myself to you, as you 
have not had yourself introduced to me. I am Mr. Blank 
Blank." 

The young man seemed delighted at this attention on 
the part of Mr. Blank, and was apparently as unconscious 
of having committed a gross incivility as if he had been ed- 
ucated in the latitude of the Black Hills. Such young 
men, together with those who set wine-glasses or plates on 
the base of costly marble statues, or who empty them under 
the table, who carry "eatables and drinkables" into draw- 
ing-rooms for the thoughtless, who throw themselves on 
satin and lace bed-covers, leaving the mark of blacking on 
the delicate spreads ; who use damask towels to wipe the 
mud from their " pumps," who smoke in bed-rooms, 
leaving piles of ashes on the marble of bureaus or wash- 
stands, are the ones to whom Herr Teufelsdrockh should 
have confined his comments. 

Society accepts the physiological view of the respective 
fitness of young women at the age of eighteen, and young 
men from the age of twenty-one to twenty-two, to enter its 
more ceremonious assemblages. Up to these ages, they are 
supposed to be occupied with studies which prepare them 
for the enjoyment of life, as well as for usefulness, and for 
contributing to the enjoyment of others; until then, their 
intercourse with the world is generally confined to their 
circles of relatives, school companions, college class-mates 
and other young persons near their own age. Now and 
then an exceptional case is found, in which a young girl is 
as mature at sixteen as another at eighteen ; a young man 
as cultivated and companionable at nineteen as at twenty- 



INFLUENCE OP SISTERS. 227 

five, and such are always welcomed in society, without re- 
gard to age. Parents are the best judges of the fitness of 
their children to enter general society before the age that 
custom sanctions — at least they know their own wishes in 
such matters ; and it is for them to decide how long it is for 
their children's good to give that uninterrupted attention 
to study, which becomes impossible when once broken in 
upon by society claims. 

So far from agreeing with the German philosopher in 
the expression of his views, given at the head of this chap- 
ter, in reference to young men being kept out of sight until 
they are twenty-one, we are of the opinion that not enough 
attention is given by parents and sisters to young sons and 
brothers at home, in the way of providing entertainment 
for them, as well as instruction, making their companions 
welcome, providing liberally for their pleasure, and throw- 
ing around them the refining influence of the society of 
young girls. 

Home should be made the happiest spot on earth for all 
its inmates, and those mothers and sisters who fully ap- 
preciate their responsibilities will labor for this end. The 
important relations that sisters sustain to brothers cannot 
be fully appreciated without a greater knowledge of the 
world, and its temptations for young men, than girls in 
their teens are supposed to possess ; but sisters who study 
to please and amuse their brothers in their youth receive 
their reward, not only upon the hold thus gained upon 
their brothers' affection and confidences, but in the sisterly 
influence acquired over them in controlling intimacies, 
and sometimes in preventing them from becoming the vic- 
tims of the designing and the unprincipled. 

More than this, it is in the sister's power to aid the 
mother in establishing that high standard of female excel- 
lence which guides a man in the most important event of 
his life, namely, in choosing a wife. Those young men 



228 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

who have formed their models from mothers and sisters, 
whose aims have been high and worthy, will not be so likely 
to allow fancy or passion to control them in their choice 
of a companion for life, as will those who have had friv- 
olous and selfish women around them. Some very prac- 
tical writer says: Love is not affection. From its very 
nature it is but a temporary impulse, and, in most cases, a 
singularly silly impulse, which has become to be regarded 
as something almost divine, owing to the absurd nonsense 
that poets and others have written about it. 

This would be truer, if its author had said, " Fancy is 
not affection," etc. However ; it is a sad lesson which the 
experience of life brings to many, namely, that the mar- 
riages which are made in the heaven of love are too often 
not as happy as those which are made from a moral judg- 
ment, for traits of mind -and heart, from the standpoint of 
sentiment rather than of feeling or passion. 

On this subject, Rev. Robert Collyer says : " I think 
the average novel is making sad mischief in the average 
mind in its pictures of true love. It makes the tender 
glow and glamour which related natures feel when they 
meet, true love. It is no such thing ; it is true passion, 
that is all ; a blessed power purely and rightly used, but 
no more true love than those little hooks and tendrils we 
see in June on a shooting vine are the ripe clusters of 
October. For true love grows out of reverence and defer- 
ence, loyalty and courtesy, good service given and taken, 
dark days and bright days, sorrow and joy. It is the fine 
essence of all we are together, and all we do. True passion 
comes first, true love last." 

It has been said that passion can exist without love, but 
that there is no such thing as true love without passion, 
that passion comes and goes like the lightning out of the 
heavens ; but that love, like the sun, burns with a steady 



INFLUENCE OF SISTERS. 229 

light, even when behind clouds of trial and vexation, ad- 
versity and affliction. 

This then is the " true love " that is needed to make 
married life what it should be, to sanctify and hallow all 
its relations and to make home the altar of the affections. 
Other requisites for happiness in married life are treated 
in another chapter. 

The " Young Lady's Friend" enters so fully upon the 
relations of brothers and sisters, behavior to parents, friends, 
young men, and connections, conduct to teachers, treat- 
ment of domestics, female companionship, and mental cul- 
ture, that it would seem to be a work of supererogation 
to even touch upon any of these topics in a book which is 
intended as a companion to that volume; but too much 
cannot be said or written upon the vast power that lies 
in the hands of mothers and sisters in forming the char- 
acters of sons and brothers. Aime Martin says: " The 
maternal inspirations can impart vice and virtue as the 
Word of God imparts life." In these inspirations, in this 
influence, sisters as well as mothers may have a part. 



230 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONFLICTING AUTHORITIES AND OPINIONS ON POINTS OF 

SOCIAL ETIQUETTE, WITH RECAPITULATORY 

REMARKS AND COMMENTS. 

" A gentleman offers his left arm to the lady whom he is to lead 
into dinner." — " Social Etiquette in Nexo York? 1 Home Journal. 

" Dinner announced, the host offers his left arm to the lady." — Mrs. 
Dahlgren's " Etiquette of Social Life in Washington." 

" A gentleman offers his right arm in conducting ladies, whether on 
the street or in the house. By so doing, the right hand of the lady 
is left free to hold her parasol, or, if in the house, to use her fan, 
attached to her chatelaine, and to guard her train from being stepped 
upon. Some writers decree that the right arm is to be offered on 
one occasion, and the left arm on others. This is absurd, as no man 
could remember the distinctions with our mode of life. Both com- 
mon sense and gallantry assign the lady's place where it is for 
her greatest convenience, on his right. A lady gives the seat of 
honor at table on her right, retaining the right-hand seat in her 
carriage and opera-box, excepting where she yields it to a lady older 
than herself. The rule that a lady must always have the wall, either 
on the street or ascending staircases, should not be regarded. It 
was made for walking in streets where there are no sidewalks or 
very narrow ones (as still seen in some foreign cities), to protect the 
lady from the passing vehicles and animals. In America a gentle- 
man should, as a rule, keep on the left of a lady, in order to guard 
her from the jostling of passers-by. He should pay no regard to the 
wall. It is for the protection of ladies in this way that the rule is so 
universally followed of giving the right arm." — Mrs. H. 0. Ward. 

Is it any wonder that we have no general understanding 
of what the established customs of society in America are, 
or should be, when our authorities vary so widely in a 
simple point, which, in other countries, is a settled one? 



CONFLICTING AUTHORITIES AND OPINIONS. 231 

To some persons it may seem almost ludicrously unim- 
portant whether a gentleman offers his right arm or his 
left in conducting ladies through suites of apartments and 
halls, or in galleries of pictures ; yet, as the non-observ- 
ance of just such trivial points creates confusion where 
harmony should reign, and inconvenience where the com- 
fort of all concerned should be regarded, we shall try to 
show which of these rules is the best suited to our mode 
of life in America, without reference to the customs of any 
other country. 

Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren, in her book treating of the 
etiquette of social life in Washington, frankly states that 
her sole object is to collate various expressions on mooted 
points, in the hope that their presentation may lead to the 
establishment of more clearly-defined rules, generously 
adding: "We are, therefore, equally pleased to publish 
opinions of weight when presented to us, whether they 
may happen to coincide with any preconceived notion of 
our own or not." 

This is just what is needed in order to reconcile our 
conflicting customs, and to bring about that uniformity 
and " fixity of society usages which we must have before 
we can be said to have society in the sense in which that 
word is used by the foreigners who come here seeking 
society," to quote from an article in "The Galaxy" en- 
titled, " What Constitutes American Society ?" 

"The Nation" (March 6th, 1873), commenting upon this 
paper, says, one mistake which foreigners make who are 
sojourning among us, is that of supposing that because an 
Englishman will, under certain circumstances, always do 
certain things ; and a Frenchman will, under certain cir- 
cumstances, always do certain things, therefore an Ameri- 
can also has this fixity ; continuing : " From our want of 
fixed society, then, and of a fixed national type, it follows 



232 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

that whoso seeks among us fixed society usages will always 
be liable to mistakes. The subject is a deep and high 
one ; but tourists who intend paying us a visit might be 
referred to an article which appears in ' Lippincott' for 
March, entitled, ' Unsettled Points of Etiquette/ " 

The constant readers of " Lippincott" may remember that 
the ground which Mrs. Moore took in this essay, was that 
the diversity of opinion which exists in America in refer- 
ence to many points of etiquette is to be regretted, for the 
reason that " where no fixed rules exist, there must always 
be misapprehensions and misunderstandings; rudenesses 
suspected where none are intended, and sometimes re- 
sented, to the great perplexity of the offender as to the 
cause of offence." Mrs. Dahlgren has made the first move 
in the right direction for bringing about the harmonizing 
of these diversities, for it is but of comparatively little 
importance to know what customs are occasionally ob- 
served in different circles, as long as these customs con- 
flict. What our society needs is "fixed society usages," 
not varying customs laid down as actual laws, where 
there is no general understanding as to the origin of, and 
reason for, the customs, — where, in fact, only a few hold 
them in observance, the majority knowing them to be 
contrary to prevailing ideas, and in some cases antagonistic 
to the spirit of our institutions. A knowledge of etiquette 
is not merely a knowledge of common politeness, but of 
the general customs of society at its best, and obedience to it 
is to social life what obedience to law is in political life, as 
has been already quoted. 

We do not wish to be told only what the customs are, 
in American society, but what they ought to be as well. 
Therefore, giving precedence to Mrs. Dahlgren, as one of 
those ladies of social influence who have been the first to 
move in an effort to bring order out of the chaos which has 



CONFLICTING AUTHORITIES AND OPINIONS. 233 

been a cause o£ reproach in our social life, we quote first 
from her book on etiquette, — " Dinner announced, the host 
offers his left arm to the lady who has the highest official 
position present. " 

'Why has Washington society decreed that the left arm 
of the gentleman should be offered, instead of the right? 
If anv good reason can be given for reviving in this age a 
discarded rule made for quite a different state of civiliza- 
tion, let us by all means follow it all over the United States, 
and not have one rule for one section and an opposite one 
for another section. 

The lady who is compelled to use her left hand to guide 
her train, in walking through suites of rooms, or to hold 
her parasol, if on the promenade, looks awkward and feels 
awkward, if she is not left-handed ; yet all this she must 
do if she takes a gentleman's left arm. While if she takes 
his right arm (though not usual to take the arm in walk- 
ing, it is sometimes necessary), he is able to protect her 
from the jostling elbows of those who pass her, and her 
right hand is left free to use it as she will. 

If the rule for giving the left arm be traced back to its 
origin, it will be found to have had its rise in days when 
it was a matter of necessity that men should pass to the 
left, both on foot and on horse; thus keeping the sword- 
arm free for self-protection, or for the protection of ladies 
accompanying them. 

Xow all this is changed in our latitude, and we pass to 
the right, so that nothing can be plainer than that gallantry 
should assign to the ladv the gentleman's right arm, as well 
for her convenience as for her protection from contact with 
those who pass her. 

During the marriage ceremony the bride stands at the 
left of the bridegroom, facing the priest, and with her back 
to the concourse of people, in order that when they turn 



234 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

she may take his right arm in walking out of church to 
their carriage. Otherwise, he would have to pass in front 
of her to offer the required arm. It needs but little reflec- 
tion to show us that whatever be the customs of other 
countries, gentlemen in America should keep ladies who 
are walking with them on their right. There are some 
ladies who consider it a great awkwardness on the part 
of gentlemen to offer them the left arm, under any cir- 
cumstances, without first apologizing for so doing, saying 
that they cannot help forming their opinion of a man's 
savoir faire by this test. The folly of such a method of 
judging is shown in the fact that we have no actual 
laws, and that the rule of giving the left arm is still some- 
times found in foreign etiquette books, prepared for the 
instruction of persons in countries where people pass to 
the left. 

One reason put forward by those who advocate this use 
of a gentleman's left arm is that it leaves the right arm 
free to defend the lady, if attacked or insulted. How- 
ever admirable such forethought may be for the lati- 
tude of the Black Hills, it certainly cannot be necessary 
for the more highly cultured circles of our Eastern cities. 
Such a rule would make a very good appendage to the 
Deadwood version of the ten commandments, given as an 
eleventh. 

In the state of society which our newspapers represent 
as existing in Deadwood, a man would need to have his 
right arm disengaged, as well as in feudal times, in order 
to ward off any sudden blow, which he might be sub- 
jected to receiving. It is no longer necessary to consult 
the convenience of the gentleman in this manner, and 
no lady who has been accustomed to a society where the 
right arm is always offered, ever willingly submits to the 
inconvenience of taking the left, for it makes it as awkward 



CONFLICTING- AUTHORITIES AND OPINIONS. 235 

for her as it would be to use the left hand at table where 
she now uses the right. 

Another reason put forward for offering the left arm in 
conducting a laciy to the dining-room is that it is the French 
custom, adopted in order that the gentleman may, with 
more convenience to himself, place the lady's chair to suit 
her. The absurdity of this reason is too evident to need 
explanation, for when a gentleman seats a lady at the din- 
ner-table, he is obliged to release her arm before she can 
take her seat, and in doing so he is compelled to stand di- 
rectly behind her chair while placing it, and consequently 
is quite as near his own seat in the one case as in the other. 
Besides, we do not wish to follow 7 French customs, when 
those of our mother country are better adapted to our modes 
of life. Neither do we admit that the best-bred French- 
men give their left arms to ladies, save in exceptional cases, 
although their books of etiquette give this information. 
Books treating of etiquette alone are often written by 
dancing-masters and Turveydrops and others knowing 
little of the customs of the best society of any land, and 
who cannot therefore be trusted in points which conflict 
with common-sense views. 

Another reason mentioned in favor of the left arm being 
given, is that it gives the lady the wall in certain cases. 
At the first glance this seems both sensible and correct, but 
when we come to look into the origin of the rule so often 
laid down in books on etiquette, that a lady must have the 
wall, we find it w T as made when there were no sidewalks, 
and gentlemen were compelled to give the wall in order to 
protect the ladies with them from passing vehicles and ani- 
mals. The rule is still observed in countries where the 
sidewalks are very narrow, but ladies in America who dis- 
like to be jostled or elbowed, or to come in contact with a 
stream of passing people, keep to the right, which obliges 



236 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the gentleman walking with them to remain on their left. 
Even when the streets are muddy there are ladies who* 
would take the risk of a splashed gown to the risk of the 
contact referred to. 

In ascending staircases, no rule is necessary, inasmuch 
as a lady and a gentleman do not ascend side by side, un- 
less the lady is an invalid, or aged and infirm. 

Those who write upon etiquette should, in order to ac- 
complish a desirable uniformity of action, consult together 
as to the rules best adapted to American life, before citing 
any customs as actual laws. We have no actual laws, " no 
fixity of society usages," as the writer of the article in 
" The Galaxy " stated, while our need of them is increasing 
yearly. By reason of the great changes which have taken 
place in late years in New York society, greater than in 
any other of our Eastern cities, there, less than elsewhere, 
will be found perpetuated the gentle and refining tradition- 
ary influences which hold in check the most exclusive cir- 
cles of Boston and Philadelphia society. We shall never 
have any fixity of social usages, nor any rules that will be 
trustworthy ones to follow, as long as writers on this subject 
tell us what is done in certain circles, instead of what ought 
to be done. Herein, Mrs. Dahlgren sets an admirable ex- 
ample, which, if followed by others, would do much towards 
rectifying the state of things which hosts of wellbred and 
well-informed foreigners have complained of in American 
society, from De Tocqueville and Gurowski and Hubner, 
down to the essayists of to-day, viz., " our want of social 
laws, which conform as far as possible to the best laws of 
cultivated circles " everywhere. But if one writer tells us 
it is already a rule of New York society that the left arm 
is to be offered, and another advises American men to give 
the right arm, because ladies prefer to have their right 
hands at liberty, as well as because it is the prevailing cus- 



CONFLICTING AUTHORITIES AND OPINIONS. 237 

torn in the most exclusive circles of the Old World, what 
will the result be but a continued and continual confusion 
of ideas as to which arm should be given. 

One involuntarily recalls these words of Cai us Marius : 
"To concert measures at home answerable to the state of 
things abroad, and to gain every valuable end, in spite of 
opposition from the envious, the factious, and the disaf- 
fected ; to do all this, my countrymen, is more difficult 
than is generally thought." 

The application of these words to the efforts put forth 
for securing harmony in our social laws is not as absurd 
as it seems. Isoerates, born at Athens, 436 B.C., laid the 
greatest stress not only upon unanimity of action in the 
right forming of the manners of the youth of his time, but 
upon the strict inspection of the manners of adult persons, 
that their example might not lead astray those that had 
been properly educated. Not to have this kind of instruc- 
tion, and to hold diverse ideas as to social customs, is, as we 
have seen in previous chapters, as confusing to the novice 
in American society, as to find two or more standards of 
weights and measures prevailing in the same place. u ll vaut 
mieux ne pas savoir, que de savoir mal ce qiC on salt." 

Turning to De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America," 
we find these words : " Nothing is more prejudicial to de- 
mocracy than its outward forms of behavior ; many men 
would willingly endure its vices who cannot support its 
manners. Though the manners of European aristocracy 
do not constitute virtue, they sometimes embellish virtue 
itself." Gurowski, in his "America and Europe," says : 
" The thoroughbred European aristocrat is generally the 
most scrupulous in observing towards his equals, and still 
more towards his inferiors in a social point of view, those 
highest degrees of masonry of good breeding, in which few 
seem to be initiated in America." 



233 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

What is needed to make our outward forms of behavior 
more attractive in all matters, both small and great, is com- 
petent instruction in this masonry of good breeding. The 
writer of one of the best articles " Concerning Etiquette," 
which has appeared on this side of the Atlantic, tells us 
that the longitude of London is to all intents and purposes 
the social longitude of America also. This is another 
reason for adopting as our own the social laws of our 
mother country, which are adapted to our customs, instead 
of accepting etiquette-book innovations. 

Laws of etiquette which do not support the dignity of 
the individual, and the convenience and the comfort of the 
community, are senseless laws. The time lias arrived to 
discard them, and to adopt new and better ones. But to 
quote once more from Isocrates : " To advise that we should 
return to some of the institutions of our ancestors is, surely, 
a very different matter from proposing innovations;" and 
in the matter of offering the right arm, we have but to recall 
the times of our old -school grandfathers to see that this is 
no innovation, but to return to one of the customs of our 
worthy ancestors. 

Several " conflicting points" have already been touched 
upon in previous chapters. As the three books have been 
written in such a commendable cause, it is greatly to be de- 
plored that their writers have not consulted together as to 
rules where such different instructions have been given. It 
is to be hoped that future editions will show that reconcili- 
ation of conflicting opinions, which is as essential to the 
reputation of the writers as authorities, as it is to the in- 
struction of the readers of the books. 

Mrs. Dahlgren's book was written to meet the require- 
ments of Washington society. The compiler of " Sensible 
Etiquette" knows nothing of the society of our capital 
since the days of Henry Clay; but in recalling what it was 



CONFLICTING AUTHORITIES AND OPINIONS. 239 

then, she well remembers a gallant speech made to her by 
a famous statesman, who, in conducting her to the table 
(upon the occasion of one of those " champagne suppers" 
where all were seated, which were frequently given in those 
days) said : "I always keep a lady on my right side, as I 
am then sure of being near her heart." 

Possibly this custom having belonged to a past genera- 
tion, may have some weight in settling the question, and 
preventing the general adoption of a rule set down only in 
books of etiquette. 

" Social Etiquette in New York," is a more ambitious 
work, and was written in response to numerous and con- 
stant applications from all parts of the country for infor- 
mation regard ing social forms and usages in New York 
city, after "Sensible Etiquette" had gone through eight 
or ten numbers of "The Saturday Evening Post." "So- 
cial Etiquette" is entirely original, and written in the 
most charming vein, evincing in portions of it the well- 
bred woman of the world, as well as the gentlewoman of 
sense and refinement. It is thoroughly reliable as to the 
customs of certain circles in New York ; but what our young 
people need is a knowledge of what they ought to do, more 
than a knowledge of what is done. And herein lies the 
difference between "Sensible Etiquette" and "Social Eti- 
quette." The first is a compilation from the best writers 
on behavior, manners, and higher culture, and from the 
best authorities on etiquette ; the latter is an expression of 
one gentlewoman's views as to the prevailing customs of 
New York society. 

A recent article in the " Home Journal," entitled "Neg- 
lected Manners," attributes the disappearance of the first 
principles of good breeding in modern households partly to 
ignorance, and partly to reaction toward license from the 
extreme rigidity and repression of former systems, thus 



240 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

supporting the compiler in the ground taken in preceding 
chapters, when demonstrating the fact that the bad man- 
ners of the young people of the present day are mainly 
attributable to want of home-training. Our journals teem 
with articles in reference to the want of civility in our 
women, shown by not acknowledging courtesies (extended 
to them in street-cars, railway carriages, and elsewhere), 
with a simple " thank you !" 

The "Graphic," quoting from " Social Etiquette," com- 
ments as follows : " It is pronounced not etiquette for ladies 
to say ( thank you ? for small courtesies, such as passing 
change in an omnibus, restoring fallen umbrellas, etc. Oh, 
it's all explained now!" 

A society in which it is no longer etiquette to thank a 
stranger for a civility, may be fashionable, but it is not our 
best society. Our own gentlemen, as well as foreigners, 
may w T ell think any lady ungracious who does not say 
"thank you," to a stranger who stands "hat in hand" 
after "opening a door for her to pass," or "after stopping 
to raise an umbrella for her in the rain," or upon " restor- 
ing to her her dropped handkerchief, or fan." This is not 
sensible etiquette ; and, therefore, no one should adopt it. 
Nor should a gentleman extending such a civility stand 
with his eyes cast down as though he were a clown, unac- 
customed to offering civilities. Neither should he smile, 
as an acquaintance would. On the part of the lady a grave 
but cordial " thank you," is certainly better form than the 
smile to an unknown man, which it would seem by " So- 
cial Etiquette " that some New York society sanctions. 

Another conflicting point between authorities is in refer- 
ence to answering invitations. " II est aussi indispensable 
de repondre yuand on vous eerit lorsqu 'on vous parle" is 
the law of our best society ; and the higher the breeding 
the more prompt the reply. Promptness and punctuality 



CONFLICTING AUTHORITIES AND OPINIONS. 241 

are said to be among the virtues of kings and queens, with 
more truth than that proverb expresses, which confers them 
on tailors and boot- makers. 

Out of the very strictness with which our parents en- 
forced the rule of replying to all invitations as soon as 
they are received, grew in this generation the absurdity 
of considering it more civil to send an acceptance than a 
regret, when the writer knew he could not be present. 

The rule : " Where there is any doubt as to a person's 
accepting an invitation of any description, a note of accept- 
ance should be promptly sent, and if circumstances make 
it necessary to remain away, an explanatory note of regret 
must be despatched before the party comes off, if possible. 
If not, the following day." 

Now, the first part of the rule is obeyed by some who 
forget the binding requirement of the second part, and the 
rudeness of disregarding it. 

An old number of the " Home Journal" (May 21st, 1873), 
contained the following incident, which the compiler intro- 
duces here in illustration of the strict observance, in ex- 
clusive foreign society, of the rules requiring promptness 
in replying, and a note of explanation, if after events make 
it necessary to recall an acceptance. 

"settled points of etiquette." 

" The following incident, which has recently occasioned 
some stir in a certain circle of a European capital, is in- 
teresting as proving conclusively that two prominent points 
of etiquette, set forth lately in an article republished in our 
columns from ' Lippincott's Magazine/ are not unsettled 
points there, however much they may be disputed here. We 
congratulate the authoress that she is sustained by such high 
authority in the face of the coarse, adverse criticism which 
assailed her article in the city where it was first published. 

16 



242 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

For ourselves, we have no doubt the other points of her 
essay will be found to have an equally high sanction. We 
consider the article one of the best that has appeared on 
the subject in this country. We quote the following from 
a private letter : 

" Signor B., an aide-de-camp of the King of Italy, was 
recently sent to the court upon a special mission. Count 

, the Italian minister, gave a soiree for this person, 

inviting all the corps diplomatique, the foreign officials and 
members of the court, who accepted the same day that the 
invitations were sent. Signor B. dined with the King the 
night previous to the soiree, who then gave him an order, 
which he thankfully received; but after the dinner he went 
to his minister and expressed his desire to have a different 
order. The following morning the order was returned with 
this request to the King, who, very naturally, resented the 
act, and made all the members of his court understand that 
he did not wish them to go to the soiree. In consequence, 
every one sent regrets, and the King refused to see Signor B. 
when he asked afterwards for an audience $ adieu" 

"This incident proves completely, first, that all the mem- 
bers of the court sent their acceptances promptly; and, 
second, that after having accepted, they would have thought 
it very uncivil not to have gone, unless they sent partic- 
ular word that they were prevented from going. 

"It is certainly more civil to answer all formal invita- 
tions promptly ; and those who assert that it is not, show 
their own remissness as well as ignorance." 

It has been said that nine-tenths of the notes of accept- 
ance and regret contain either grammatical errors, or are 
in some way incorrect. How is it that people of high cul- 
tivation do not acquaint themselves with these simple 
matters, when they go so far with stranp-ers in forming 



CONFLICTING AUTHORITIES AND OPINIONS. 243 

judgments of the writers? However, this subject having 
been treated in the chapters in which the mistakes were 
pointed out and the proper forms given, it is not necessary 
to say more in emphasis of the fact that it is so. 

Another point in reference to which opinions seem to 
conflict is in the signing of letters with the prefix of 
" Mrs." or " Miss." There should be no conflicting opin- 
ions here, since the rule is absolute. 

" A lady signing her name in letters, documents, writ- 
ings of a literary character, or in any way, must sign her 
own name (not the name of her husband) with no prefix." 
Americans are noted for their disregard of this rule ; though 
not unfrequently, when signing in a body, it may arise 
from the carelessness or thoughtlessness of one of the num- 
ber causing all who sign to appear to give evidence of this 
mangue cle rinstruction, as it is considered ; while those 
who have not signed their names, but given permission to 
another to sign for them, may have been annoyed by the 
apparent mark of ignorance. 

Where a number of ladies unite in extending an invita- 
tion to one person, each lady should of course sign with 
her "christian name." The invitations extended to others 
who are invited to meet this person are not signed by them- 
selves, but bear their names as married women, in the 
same manner as for balls or concerts of which they are the 
patronesses. 

The order of precedence in signing, varies in different 
circles ; age should take precedence, but when this is not 
conceded there is but one method that can be adopted with 
satisfaction to all concerned, and without throwing odium 
upon any individual as appropriating for herself undue 
prominence, and that is to arrange the names alphabeti- 
cally. This is the course most generally adopted in our 
best society. 



244 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

It is not customary, nor would it be proper, for young 
unmarried ladies to sign their names to such an invitation, 
where the one invited is a married lady of high position. 
After reaching a certain age, an unmarried lady has, by 
courtesy, some of the rights and privileges of a married 
one; still they should be used with discretion. 

Under no circumstances does a wellbred English lady 
sign her name as " Mrs." It is considered a proof of low 
breeding. An American lady who was about to receive 
the order of " The Amaranth," was required to register 
her name in a book presented to her for the purpose. She 
turned to a friend near her with the question, "How shall 
I enter it, as I would sign a letter, or with my married 

name as Mrs. ?" The answer was not as civil as it 

might have been. " We English women never sign our 
names but one way, but your countrywomen frequently 
put the * Mrs. ? before their names, even in signing letters." 
There was no disputing the fact, and the American lady 
could only answer, " You must remember that America is 
a very large country, and that we have women there who 
are untrained in social duties and distinctions, as every 
nation must have." 

To take up another point upon which conflicting opinions 
exist. The question is often asked, " Are calls expected 
after kettle-drums and day receptions?" Certainly not 
from those who were present. The kettle-drum and five- 
o'clock tea were instituted in order that ladies might be 
at home to receive the calls of their acquaintances, in- 
stead of their cards. Ladies go in carriage or walking 
costume, make their call, leave their cards to refresh the 
memory of their hostess, that she may remember their 
presence, and not expect the after-call, binding on those 
who were not present. As after a lady has made a call, 



REMARKS AND COMMENTS. 245 

she of course is not bound to repeat it; so, after the call 
made on kettle-drum day, no other call is expected. 

Nearly all general rules have their exceptions, and there 
are cases where a call is soon followed up by another ; as 
where ladies exchanging first visits do not meet, which re- 
quires a second call on the part of the one whose duty it 
is to make herself known to the other. This rule, so bind- 
ing in some countries, is seldom observed here, although it 
was an established one in the davs of the "Republican 
Court," 

" Historic Mansions of Philadelphia/' page 268, gives 
us a glimpse of some prevailing social customs in the days 
when our ancien noblesse ruled society after the manner of 
the English nobility and gentry. The writer, speaking of 
a daughter of Dr. Barnabas Binney, and sister of Horace 
Binney, says : " Mrs. Wallace lived on Market Street, 
nearly opposite General Washington's house, during his 
residence in Philadelphia, and her remembrances of him 
were noted by her son, Horace Binney Wallace, long since 
deceased. She saw General Washington frequently at pub- 
lic balls. His manners there were very gracious and 
pleasant. She went with Mrs. Oliver Wolcott to one of 
Washington's drawing-rooms. The General was present, 
and -came up and bowed to every lady after she was 
seated. Mrs. Binney visited Mrs. Washington frequently. 
It was Mrs. Washington's custom to return visits on the 
third day, and she thus always returned Mrs. Binney's. . 
. . . Mrs. Wallace met Mrs. Washington in her mother's 
parlor; her manners were very easy, pleasant, and uncere- 
monious, with the characteristics of other Virginia ladies." 
The compiler of this work (herself a great-grand niece of 
Mrs. Oliver Wolcott, wife of one of the signers of the Dec- 
laration of Independence), thinks this reminiscence must 
have become a little confused in the mind of Mrs. Wal- 



246 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

lace, inasmuch as Mrs. Washington, who was known to 
be very punctilious in returning a first call within the 
three days of grace prescribed by orthodox etiquette, could 
hardly have returned all calls within that time. Philadel- 
phia^ were complained of in those days as neglecting the 
observance of many points of unwritten etiquette which 
are handed down in families from generation to generation. 
Mrs. John Adams, writing of the company which she met 
in Philadelphia, said, that although it was of the best kind, 
there was an absence of attention to conventional rules, in 
striking contrast to the society in New York and Boston. 

Still another conflicting rule in " Social Etiquette" must 
be noticed, inasmuch as it has a tendency to make more 
difficult that simplifying of rules and observances so essen- 
tial to harmony of action in, as well as to the requirements 
of, a large society. 

The author of " Social Etiquette " gives it as an exist- 
ing rule of good society in New York, that the lady shall 
bow first, which rule has been nothing but a stumbling- 
block since it was first introduced into America, within the 
memory of the present generation. It has never been gen- 
erally adopted by members of our oldest families, or by men 
who feel secure of their position in society. It is in fact a 
rule which is utterly inimical to the best interests of social 
life, one which, if the sensible writer of " Social Etiquette " 
would look at in all its bearings (instead of from a point 
of protection from the advances of pushing people), would 
be acknowledged by her to have no foothold in our neces- 
sities. It was made for a certain requirement of society in 
England, and still holds good for that one requirement 
there, and for no other. Ask a well bred Englishman if 
he waits for any lady, to whose house he has once been in- 
vited, or to whom he has once been properly introduced* in 
exclusive society, to show her recognition of him first, and 
his hearty disclaimer will give a man the clue as to his 



REMARKS AND COMMENTS. 247 

duties. The rule was made for introductions given at balls 
for the purpose of providing ladies with partners, and does 
not in any way bear upon introductions given among people 
in one's own class. 

On the Continent, under no circumstances does the lady 
speak first ; and American ladies, whose age or nearness 
of sight prevents them from being the first to recognize 
gentlemen who have been introduced to them, are grate- 
ful for a rule so well established, and would like to 
see it universally adopted here. Every woman has it in 
her power to drop a man whom she finds wanting in 
refinement ; but there are few who possess the gift of rec- 
ognizing all who have been introduced to them, when 
numerous introductions have been given in one evening, 
as sometimes happens at receptions, where acquaintances 
of the daughters and sons are for the first time the guests 
of the mother. 

The rule, to suit entirely our ways of life, should require 
the one who recognizes first to bow first, irrespective of 
sex or age. It is true that it is the duty of the young to 
recall themselves to their elders, but sometimes the elder 
may be the first to recognize, and any rule which prevents 
either from bowing first has not as yet imposed its tram- 
mels anywhere in the United States in our best society. 
We need no such barrier for our protection against the 
intrusive, and it does actual harm in keeping persons 
apart, who would have been glad to have dispensed with 
all unnecessary formalities in their intercourse with each 
other, had each been equally quick to recognize the other. 

Gentlemen have fancied that ladies to whom they had 
asked to be introduced did not wish their acquaintance, 
because these ladies failed to recognize them (meeting the 
next time), as they surely would have done had the gentle- 
men taken the initiatory in bowing. Consequently, as 



248 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

American gentlemen do not consider the foreign rule binding 
of leaving a card upon a lady to whom they have had them- 
selves introduced, the acquaintance, which may have been 
mutually desired, drops, and the lady is robbed of the 
gratification which she naturally felt at first in finding that 
her acquaintance was sought. Pages written upon this sub- 
ject would not exhaust the evils arising from the observ- 
ance of this obnoxious rule, as foreign to the spirit of a 
republic as it is to the instincts of the wellbred. Only 
very young men will be likely to adopt it, although now and 
then those who are old enough to know better have allowed 
themselves to be perplexed by it. 

A lady always has it in her power to prevent a bowing 
acquaintance from making any further demand upon her, 
and this being admitted, no reason can be given why she 
should be made to bear all the odium of non-recognition. 

Though a quickness 'for remembering faces and names 
is considered one of the hall-marks of good breeding, it is 
an impossibility for those whose circles are widely ex- 
tended to remember all who have been introduced to them, 
unless, like kings and queens, they have some one at their 
shoulder to remind them; while a gentleman cannot fail 
to recognize the lady whom he has known well enough, 
by sight, to ask for an introduction to her. 

This mischievous rule, given in " Social Etiquette," 
should be disregarded everywhere in the United States by 
those who seek the fixity of society customs. The bow is 
the touchstone of good breeding, says a French writer, 
and it is given at the instant of recognition, without hesi- 
tation, by our best-bred men. We feel sure that the 
author of "Social Etiquette/ 7 had she written of what 
ought to be an actual law, and not of a partially adopted 
custom, would have lent the influence of her pen to show 
wherein this rule is antagonistic to refined instincts as 



REMARKS AND COMMENTS. 249 

well as contrary to "the general customs of society at its 
best." Nor let any one think it too small a matter to 
engage the attention of the writer, nor the subject too un- 
important to employ an author's pen. 

The Bishop of Manchester, in one of his lectures, said : 
"There is a great cry at present about women's rights. I 
wish women to enjoy all the rights that belong to them, 
but I would remind them of the great maxim, Cest la 
femrne qui fait les mceurs." Trivial as these disputed points 
of etiquette may seem to many, they must not forget that, 
as has already been said, attention to details is the true 
sign of a great mind, and that he who can, in necessity, 
consider the smallest, is the same man who can compass 
the largest subjects. Life is made up of details. The 
following quotations from "Social Etiquette," though not 
apropos to "Conflicting Points," reveal the spirit in which 
the able work has been penned : 

"Etiquette may be despotic, but its cruelty is inspired 
by intelligent kindliness. It is like a wall built up around 
us to protect us from disagreeable, underbred people, who 
refuse to take the trouble to be civil. Those who defy the 
rules of the best society, and claim to be superior to them, 
are always coarse in their moral fibre, however strong they 
may be intellectually 

" Possibly, those vagrants, who scorn etiquette and 
refuse to take the white highroad of a refined civilization, 
do not possess those necessary aptitudes for imitation which 
are requisite for the easy acquirement of customs and for- 
malities which by birth are alien to them. Sneering is 
not unfrequently a thin and foolish veil by which they en- 
deavor to hide their lack of birth and breeding. If such 
undisciplined persons would only submit to custom, and 
use their best powers of adaptation, they would soon dis- 
cover 'that formality is as easy as a tune that sings itself in 
one's thoughts without a sound being heard." 



250 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



DRESS — TOILET — MOURNING. 



" Women are censured for extravagance in dress and general expen- 
ditures. Ever since the fruit breakfast under the apple tree in the 
Garden of Eden, woman has been blamed for a good many things for 
which her direct responsibility is exceedingly doubtful. 

11 Who makes woman extravagant? Who cultivates and inspires 
her luxurious tastes and proclivities ? Who demands inexorably, that 
she shall be not only naturally lovely, but insists that she be improved 
by the gentle processes of a generous aestheticism ? Of course no- 
body under the overspreading heavens but man. l N'aurez jamais 
Vair (Vun bourgeois,' is the male injunction, and woman dresses be- 
cause men demand that she shall be dressed and dressed well, from 
the dainty leather which embraces her pretty little feet to the rose 
which nestles in the perfumed couch of her hair. Do not blame 
women then for rushing into every extravagance of dress. She has 
a natural penchant for outward adornment, and the other sex has 
assiduously cultivated it. That it ruins thousands of men is an un- 
questionable fact, but they have themselves to blame, that is all." — 
Louisville Courier -Journal. 

11 Refinement of character is said never to be found with vulgarity 
of dress." 

" Never teach false morality. How exquisitely absurd to tell a girl 
that beauty is of no value, dress of no use. Beauty is of value; her 
whole prospects and happiness in life may often depend upon a new 
gown or a becoming bonnet, and if she has five grains of common 
sense she will find this out. The great thing is to teach her their just 
value, and that there must be something better under the bonnet than 
a pretty face if she would have real and lasting happiness. But never 
sacrifice truth." — Sydney Smith. 

There are few subjects that so strongly appeal to the 
feminine mind as that of clothes, writes a journalist. It is a 



DRESS. 251 

perpetually changing and ever-recurring theme. The lawns 
and the laces of summer, the velvets and the furs of winter, 
must, each in their turn, receive full attention. Any woman 
of any standing whatever finds that subject weigh heavily 
on her twice a year. The shape and the substance of her gar- 
ments become unto her a burden. Nor, when those gar- 
ments are purchased and have proved satisfactory, are her 
cares then at rest. For the toilet of a fashionable dame, 
aye, or of an unfashionable one, for the matter of that, re- 
quires a myriad of accessories. She must have cravats, 
and collars, and cuffs, and fans, and ribbons, and trinkets, 
and fanciful shoes, and still more fanciful stockings. She 
must have many-buttoned gloves, and many-strapped slip- 
pers. She must have bonnets and hats, chignons and shoe- 
buckles. And when all is said and done and bought, her 
heart may sink to rest for a brief six months. 

Now all this would be very well were every man a mil- 
lionaire, and every woman a society- woman. Then, be- 
tween a limitless purse on one side, and unlimited claims 
on the other, the business would be but right and proper. 
It is, however, unfortunately the fact that, in the United 
States, but too much attention is paid to dress by those 
who have neither the excuse of ample means nor of social 
claims. The wife of the bank clerk, or of the young busi- 
ness man just making a start in life, aims at dressing, if not 
as richly, at least as stylishly as does the wealthiest among 
her acquaintances. The sewing girl and the shop girl, nay 
even the chambermaid and the cook, must in their turn 
have flounced silk dresses and velvet cloaks for Sunday 
wear. Many a hard-working Irish girl expends her 
savings of months in the purchase of a Sunday silk, be- 
cause she does not wish to be less well-dressed than are 
her companions. We have known instances in which a 
Christmas gift of a dress pattern was refused because there 



252 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

was not enough in it to make a dress with a trimmed over- 
skirt, and a warm blanket shawl was left unworn because 
"it was not stylish. " The injury done by this state of 
things to the morals and the manners of our lower classes 
is incalculable. And there is no use of any one house- 
keeper trying to stem the current. The evil is too univer- 
sal and too widespread to be combated single-handed. Any 
ardent reformer who will attempt the task will only find 
herself held up to general reprobation in the widespread 
w T orld of servantism. 

Whatever may be the dress extravagances of Parisian 
womanhood, they are at least always appropriate. The 
elegante and the idler, the mondaine and the demi-mon- 
daine alone devote their souls to furbelows. The bour- 
geoise dame, in her plain, stout, stiff gown or well-preserved 
black silk, the servant in her trim alpaca or clean print, 
have no affinity with the laces and ribbons and gewgaws of 
those to whom indolence and wealth have accorded the 
right to wear them. Madame Millefleurs in Paris may 
hang her Worth dresses forever within full view of her 
maidservants without any one attempting to "cut a pat- 
tern" from them. But Mrs. Hauton, in New York, is very 
apt to see Bridget and Dinah emerging from the area in a 
close copy of her last Paris suit, at the moment she walks 
out of the front door clad in the original. 

The United States has imported a great deal from France. 
French dresses, French gloves, French wines, French 
plays, aid to adorn our persons and to mould our morals. 
We wish that we could import as well some of the strong 
common-sense that they contrive to infuse into the details 
of daily life. We Americans are lavish, generous, and 
ostentatious. The wives of our wealthy men are glorious 
in garb as are princesses and queens. They have a right 
so to be. But when those who can ill afford to wear alpaca 



DRESS. 253 

persist in arching themselves in silk, because Mrs. So- 
and-So does it, the matter is a sad one. In this respect we 
lack the wisdom of the French, from whom we have learned 
so many lessons of grace and elegance. Our women should 
take one more lesson from them, and learn how to dress 
appropriately — according to means, station, and suitability. 
Within the last few years there has been a great change 
for the better in walking dresses. 

The glaring colors, the " loud " costumes, once so com- 
mon, have given place to sober grays, and browns, and 
olives ; black predominating over all. Chains of gold, 
with lockets depending from them, and diamond earrings 
are no longer worn on the street by those who know what 
is considered good form in dress, though occasionally soli- 
taires are seen as in France. Cluster stones are worn only 
in the evening, as abroad. The light showily trimmed 
dresses, which were once displayed on the fashionable prom- 
enades of our cities, are now only seen in carriages, for 
which use they are made. Now and then, some matron or 
maiden, from a far Western city, exhibits at the same time 
her gay dress and her ignorance of prescribed street toilettes, 
but even such displays are growing rarer and rarer, and 
are generally confined to those who love ostentation more 
than comfort. 

Evening dress, which may be as gay as one chooses to 
make it, has been defined by Lord Beaconsfield to be a 
style of costume sanctioned by society, for enabling ladies 
to display their natural beauties with a profusion worthy 
of a Grecian statue. 

This is not a fair definition for American ladies ; as, 
although it is everywhere the custom to wear full evening 
dress in brilliant evening assemblages, but few ladies, out 
of England (and demi-monde circles) wear their dresses 
cut as distressingly low as those Lord Beaconsfield refers to. 



254 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Ball dress for ladies has already been described in the 
chapter on evening parties^ and will be reviewed later. 

Gentlemen wear a black dress suit, the coat being 
"swallow-tail/' the waistcoat cut low, the cravat white, 
thin patent leather boots, and kid gloves of the palest hue, 
if not white as prescribed. The shirt front should be plain ; 
the studs and sleeve-links simple. It need not be added 
that especial attention should be given to the hair, which, 
according to the present mode, is neither so short as to 
suggest an escaped lunatic, nor " so long as to give the 
appearance of a fiddler." It is better to err upon the too 
short side, especially at the back of the head, where long 
hair destroys the shape, and gives a touch of vulgarity, 
even to the most highbred physiognomy. For this reason 
it is to be regretted that the present style may not be a 
permanent one. 

Evening dress is the same, whatever the nature of the 
evening's entertainment. The theory is, that a gentleman 
dresses for dinner, and is then prepared alike for calls, 
opera, or ball. Sunday evenings, morning dress is worn. 
No one goes to church in evening dress, and no one is 
expected to appear in it at home or away from home on 
that day. In some circles evening dress is considered an 
affectation, and it is well in provincial towns to do as 
others do. 

In the country, as at the seaside, gentlemen wear rough 
cloth suits and shooting costumes ; but as it is the custom 
to give half- worn suits to servants, when any one garment 
of such suits gives out, let gentleman avoid wearing the 
remaining two garments of a suit with a third that was not 
made for it. Such mongrel or harlequin costumes are ca- 
pable of transforming, in outward appearance, a gentleman 
into an old clothes-dealer. For this reason, it is to be 
hoped that a fashion, said to have been recently introduced 



DRESS. 255 

by members of the Coaching Club, of wearing trousers 
darker than the suit, will not find favor. The rule has 
heretofore been invariable, that the trousers must be lighter 
than the coat and the waistcoat. 

Evening and dinner dress, for gentlemen, is the same 
as ball dress, only that gloves are dispensed with at din- 
ner, and pale colors are preferred to white for ordinary 
evening wear. Waistcoats cut low are not worn with frock- 
coats, or with any but dress-coats. White lawn cravats or 
ties are worn only with evening dress. At other times the 
use of them is confined to butlers and waiters, together 
with suits of shining black cloth. 

Worsted or cotton gloves are not permissible anywhere, 
nor under any circumstances. Ungloved hands are prefer- 
able. Colored shirts are worn in the morning, and are 
often seen at watering-places until the dinner hour. Straw 
and felt hats should never be worn with frock-coats. 
Morning calls are often made by gentlemen in our cities, 
as well as at watering-places, in their accustomed morning 
dress. 

At garden parties, gentlemen wear dark frock-coats, 
white or black waistcoats, gray or colored trousers, plaids 
or stripes, according to the fashion, and "stove-pipe" hats. 

When invited to an early dinner or a luncheon, either 
in the city or the country, or at a watering-place, the suit- 
able dress for gentlemen is a black frock-coat, colored 
trousers, white or black waistcoat, and black scarf or tie. 
A black frock-coat worn with black trousers is as incorrect 
a combination as a dress-coat and colored trousers would 
be. A white neck-tie ought never to be worn with a frock- 
coat. The same dress as that worn to garden parties is 
suitable for a kettle-drum, a day reception, or a social tea, 
and is worn on Sundays, both in town and country. Blonde 
men can wear bright neck-ties and scarfs ; but let brunettes 



256 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

beware of more than the faintest dash of gay color when 
they wish to look distinguished, for a superabundance 
sometimes gives even a gentleman the appearance of a 
bookmaker on the race-course. Custom, however, has a 
great deal to do with our prejudices. 

It is not considered good form for men to wear much 
jewelry. One plain handsome ring, studs and sleeve-links, 
a watch-chain, not too massive, and without pendants, al- 
ways looks more manly and aristocratic than a super- 
abundance of ornament. 

The suitable dress for riding in the park is an ordinary 
walking costume ; in the country, cords and boots and 
felt hat may be adopted, but never in town. For shooting, 
rough coats, Knickerbockers, thick stockings, leggings, and 
substantial boots. 

Gloves are worn in the street, at an evening party, at 
the opera or theatre, at receptions, at church, when paying 
a call, driving or riding ; but not in the country, nor at a 
dinner. White is de rigueur for balls ; the palest colors for 
evening parties ; neutral shades for church. 

Much confusion has prevailed in the minds of some 
American men as to the occasions when a dress-coat is 
to be worn. It has been shown that morning dress and 
evening dress for men varies as decidedly as it does for 
women. A gentleman in a dress-coat and white tie feels 
as uncomfortable in the daylight as would a lady in low 
neck and short sleeves. The gas should be lighted, and 
the shutters closed, on ceremonious occasions where even- 
ing dress is desired in daylight. Frenchmen are married 
in dress-coats at morning weddings, Englishmen in frock- 
coats. The true evening costume, accepted as such 
throughout the world, has at length, though not without 
some tribulation, established itself firmly in this country. 
With advancing culture we have grown more cosmopoli- 



DRESS. • 257 

tan, and the cosmopolitan evening dress, acknowledged 
everywhere from Indus to the pole, has been granted un- 
disputed sway. Thus far, then, we have harmonized our 
standard with that of the rest of the world ; but in the 
matter of the proper costume for state occasions before 
dinner, the average American man is very much in the 
dark, and even high officials, governors, cabinet officers 
and other dignified people, will get themselves up for a 
morning reception, a luncheon, or some midday ceremony, 
as though they were going to dine. Considering that in 
this matter the laws of cosmopolitan society are as well 
established as in the other, this carelessness is very absurd; 
yet it is not entirely hopeless. The swallow-tail has so 
recently secured its due recognition, that it naturally 
obtrudes itself in an unseemly way, but in good time it 
will learn its place and keep it. 

A dress-coat at a morning or afternoon reception, on 
any one but a waiter, is as much out of place as a frock- 
coat would be at a large dinner. The frock-coat and gray 
trousers, make quite as becoming a costume, and one that 
is established for morning dress by the same regulations 
which prescribe our evening dress. 

As to the use of the bath, the flesh-brush, and the care 
of the teeth and the nails, it is unnecessary to dwell; 
these are as essential to health and a good appearance as is 
tidiness and suitableness in the dress. Long nails on 
ladies or on gentlemen are known in the best society as an 
abomination, and long hair should be left to the monopoly 
of those artists and authors who have bohemian tenden- 
cies. The same class of men are given to indulging in 
colored cravats, showy shirt fronts, huge coral studs, lace 
cravats and perfumes. 

For ladies the golden rule is to avoid extremes. Dr. 
Johnson's remark, " I am sure she was well-dressed, for I 

17 



258 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

cannot remember what she had on," suggests a clue to the 
secret of being faultlessly attired. Refinement in dress 
and refinement in character often go together, as well as a 
love of the beautiful in nature and in art. 

Indifference and consequent inattention to dress, often 
show pedantry, self-righteousness or indolence. It is not 
a virtue, but a defect in the character. Every woman 
should study to make the best of herself with the means 
at her command. Among the rich, the love of dress pro- 
motes some degree of exertion and display of taste in 
themselves, and fosters ingenuity and industry in infe- 
riors; in the middle classes it engenders contrivance, dili- 
gence, neatness of hand; among the humbler it has its 
good effects. So long as dress merely interests, amuses, 
occupies such time and such means as we can reasonably 
allot to it, it is salutary; refining the tastes and the habits, 
and giving satisfaction and pleasure to others. 

An attention to dress is useful as retaining, even in the 
minds of sensible men, that pride in a wife's appearance 
which is so agreeable to her, as well as that due influence 
which, in the present state of society, cannot be attained 
without it. 

But a love of dress has its perils for weak minds. Un- 
controlled by good sense, and stimulated by personal 
vanity, it becomes a temptation first, and then a curse. 
When it is indulged in to the detriment of better employ- 
ments, and beyond the compass of means, it cannot be too 
severely condemned. It then becomes criminal. 

Catharine of Arragon is said to have expressed the 
opinion that " dressing-time is murdered time;" but the 
woman who has not some natural taste in dress, some love 
of novelty, some delight in the combination of colors, must 
be deficient in a sense of the beautiful. As a work of art 
a well-dressed woman is a study. Consistency, in regard 



TOILET. 259 

to station and fortune, is the first matter to be considered. 
A woman of good sense will not wish to expend in un- 
necessary extravagancies money wrung from the hands of 
an anxious, laborious husband ; or if her husband be a 
man of fortune, she will not even then encroach upon her 
allowance. During the first few years of married life, 
where the income is moderate, it should be the pride of a 
woman to see how little she can expend upon her dress, 
and yet present that tasteful, creditable appearance which 
is desirable. Much depends upon management, and upon 
the care taken of garments. The French women turn 
everything to account, nor do they think it unbecoming to 
their dignity to be careful of their clothing when wearing 
it. They are never seen trailing the skirts of rich silk 
gowns in the street, nor any gowns as to that matter. It 
is a disgusting sight to see a woman performing the work 
of a street cleaner, and taking up in her clothing the dust 
and impurities that have collected upon street pavements, 
to say nothing of the extravagance of the act. Walking 
costumes are never worn by Europeans of the higher 
classes long enough to touch the ground. In fact, the 
first requisite in a lady's toilet, if she wishes to make her- 
self attractive, is cleanliness. On this head, fastidiousness 
cannot be carried too far. Cleanliness is the outward 
sign of inward purity. Cleanliness of the person is 
health, and health is beauty. Some writer gives purity of 
the mind as the first requisite in a woman, and cleanliness 
of person as the second. The dressing-room work can 
be quite well performed in from half to three-quarters of 
an hour, including the bath with friction, and the brush- 
ing and arrancrin^ of the hair. It should at latest be 
achieved by eight o'clock in summer, and nine in winter. 
To sleep too much is as trying to the constitution as to 
sleep too little. To sleep too much is to render oneself 



260 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

liable to all kinds of minor ailments, both of mind and 
body. It is a habit that cannot be too severely censured, 
especially in the young. 

The bath is a most important object of study. It is 
not to be supposed that we wash in order to become clean; 
we wash because we wish to remain clean. Cold water 
refreshes and invigorates, but does not cleanse, and those 
persons, therefore, who daily use a cold-sponge bath in the 
morning, should frequently "use a warm one for cleansing 
purposes, of from 96° to 100°. When a plunge bath is 
taken, the safest temperature is from 80° to 90°, which 
answers the purpose both of refreshing and cleansing. 
Soap should be plentifully used, and the flesh-brush 
applied vigorously, drying with a huck-a-back or coarse 
Turkish towel. Nothing improves the complexion like 
the daily use of the flesh-brush, with early rising and 
exercise in the open air. The teeth should be carefully 
brushed after every meal, as well as in the morning and 
at night, with a tooth-brush not too hard. "Amykos" is 
an excellent wash for the teeth.* Very hot and very 
sweet things, as well as iced drinks, should be avoided. 
The breath should be particularly watched and cared for. 
Onions have been called the forbidden fruit of the Eve of 
the nineteenth century. As soon as the breath becomes 
habitually unpleasant, one should consult a physician, 
feeling quite sure that the digestive machinery is out of 
order. The greatest care should be taken to keep the 
nails cut short and fastidiously clean. Most druggists 
keep the necessary articles for preserving the nails in 

* This cheap preparation of a European chemist is equally good 
for a hair- wash, and for the skin. Its effect is magical in healing any 
abrasion. The compiler of this book has just discovered that there 
is an agent for its sale in this country : C. Am Ende, 268 Washington 
Street, Hoboken, N. J. 



TOILET. 261 

order. The boxes are labelled " Beaute des 31ains, Poudre 
et Palissoir a Onglcs." In cutting and filing them, every 
care must be given to the preservation of the shape and 
the removal of superfluous skin. A liberal use of the 
nail-brush, tepid water, and best Windsor soap, will insure 
the preservation of a delicate hand. Those who are trou- 
bled with a rough skin, will find it improved by bathing 
them with cream or glycerin. The hair requires a good 
deal of care, though of the simplest and most inartificial 
kind. The secret of fine and glossy hair is persistent 
brushing at morning and evening with a hair-brush kept 
clean by frequent Avashings in hot water and soda. 
"Amykos," which is devoid of oil or glycerin, is a 
pleasant wash for cleansing and softening the skin of the 
head when dry, and is invaluable for other purposes men- 
tioned in the paper accompanying each bottle. Above all 
things, never attempt to change the color of the hair by 
means of fashionable dyes and fluids. Color so obtained 
cannot harmonize naturally with the skin, eyes, and eye- 
brows that nature has given ; and ends by disfiguring 
those who resort to it, causing them to be taken for 
actresses or women of the demi-monde. 

Let girls be careful in regard to diet, take regular ex- 
ercise in the open air, wear broad-brimmed hats in the 
sun and veils in the wind ; let them avoid pearl powders 
and washes of every kind (unless such sweet and harmless 
ones as Amykos and Godfrey's Extract of Elder Flowers) ; 
let them, above all things, go early to bed, and rise be- 
times in the morning; and if by so doing they are not 
beautiful, they never can be in any other way. 

The face should never be washed when heated from 
exercise. Wipe the perspiration from the skin, and wait 
until it is sufficiently cool before you bathe it. In case of 
any eruption upon the skin, no time should be lost in 



262 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

procuring medical advice. "He who doctors himself has 
a fool for a physician/' says the proverb. 

To return from the toilet to the dress. To dress well 
demands something more than a full purse and a good 
figure. It requires good taste, good sense and refinement. 
A woman of good sense will neither make dress her first 
nor her last object in life. She will remember that no 
wife will betray that total indifference for her husband 
which is implied in the neglect of her appearance, and she 
will also remember that to dress consistently and tastefully 
is one of the duties which she owes to society. There is a 
Spanish proverb, which says, " Every hair has its shadow." 
So, in like manner, every lady, however insignificant her 
social position may appear to herself, must exercise a cer- 
tain influence on the feelings and opinions of others. If, 
therefore, the art of dressing appears either too irksome or 
too frivolous to such women as are engaged in serious oc- 
cupations, let them remember that the art of dressing per- 
forms the same part in beautifying domestic life as is per- 
formed by music and the fine arts in embellishing the life, 
moral and spiritual. 

So long, therefore, as dress merely occupies so much 
time, and requires so much money as we are fairly entitled 
to allow it, nothing can be said against it. Dress, to be in 
perfect taste, need not be costly ; and no woman of right 
feeling will adorn her person at the expense of her hus- 
band's comfort or her children's education. 

A woman's toilet should be as Men soignee, and as well 
chosen at the family breakfast-table as at the grand ball. 
If she is young, her dress will be youthful ; if she is old, 
it should not affect simplicity. The golden rule in dress 
is to avoid extremes. Ladies who are not very young nor 
very striking in appearance cannot do better than wear 
quiet colors. Ladies who are not rich can always ajjpear 



TOILET. 263 

well dressed with a little care in the choice and arrange- 
ment of the materials and colors. 

Morning dress should be faultless in its way. For 
young ladies, married or unmarried, nothing is prettier in 
summer than white or very light morning dresses of ma- 
terials that will wash ; but they must always be exquisitely 
fresh and clean, ribbons fresh, collars or ruches irreproach- 
able. 

The usual dress for elderly ladies of wealth and position 
should be of dark silk. Jewelry, flowers in caps, or hair 
ornaments, and light silk dresses, are not suitable for 
morning wear. All diamonds should be reserved for 
evening wear. 

Thin ladies can wear delicate colors, while stout, florid 
persons look best in black or dark gray. For old as well 
as young, however, the question of color must be deter- 
mined by complexion and figure. Rich colors harmonize 
with brunette complexions and dark hair ; delicate colors 
with persons of blonde hair and complexion. 

Imitation lace should never be worn by those who can 
afford to encourage art and industry. A lady must always 
be bien chaussee. If stockings are visible, they should be 
of silk or fine thread ; the shoe well made, and somewhat 
trimmed. Too manv rings are vulgar. English ladies 
seldom wear other than those of a solid kind in the morn- 
ing. Continental European and American ladies are not 
so particular, and are frequently seen, not only with 
diamond rings, but with diamond solitaires in their ears, 
those containing stones set in a cluster being distinguished 
by them as belonging to evening dress solely. 

A peignoir or loose robe of rich texture may be worn in 
the early morning hours, but is scarcely consistent after 
midday. 

The morning coiffure, be it a cap or be it the dressing of 



264 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the hair, should be neat, simple and compact. A head-dress 
of lace and bows of ribbon is becoming to married women, 
but never suitable for young girls. The use of them by the 
unmarried is confined to the demi-monde. Artificial flowers 
are not worn in morning caps. Walking dresses should 
always be quiet in color, simple, substantial, and, above 
all, founded on the science of combination. In the city 
there should be some degree of richness in the dress ; for 
the country it should be tasteful, solid and strong. For- 
tunately for the health of the present generation, thin mo- 
rocco boots are no longer worn for walking. Fashion 
decrees thick boots, balmoral stockings, gants de Suede, 
and short gowns, as the prescribed walking costume. 
American women can now enjoy a good walk with pleas- 
ure, and without shuddering at the aspect of a filthy 
crossing, or worrying themselves with the weight of skirts 
which cleanliness enforces their lifting from the ground, 
since the French modistes have at last consented to make 
American walking costumes as they have always made them 
for Europeans. Women of the lower orders can now have, 
as in Europe, the uncleanly monopoly of wearing carriage 
toilettes in walking. 

Visiting costumes, or those worn at day receptions, are 
of richer material than walking suits. The bonnet is either 
simple or rich, according to the taste of the wearer, but it 
must not encroach upon such as are suitable only for afete. 
It must still be what the French call "un chapeau de 
fatigue." A jacket of velvet, or shawl, or fur-trimmed 
mantle, are the concomitants of the carriage visiting dress 
in winter. In summer, all should be bright, cool, agree- 
able to wear, and pleasant to look at. Mantles of real 
lace, though less worn in America than formerly, are always 
rich. Ordinary evening dress admits of great taste and 
variety. A lady should provide herself with dresses suit- 



TOILET. 265 

able for demi-toilette. To wear dresses in the home circle 
that have done service in the past as ball or dinner dresses, 
sometimes gives a tawdry, miserable look to the wearer. 
Nothing is so vulgar as finery and jewelry out of place. 

The full dinner dress admits of great splendor in the 
present days of luxury. It may be of any thick texture 
of silk in vogue, long, fresh and sweeping. Diamonds 
are used, but not in full suits as at balls, only in broaches, 
pendants, earrings and bracelets. The same rule applies 
to emeralds, but not to pearls. Rows of pearls are worn 
with any dress ; they suit either the demi-toilette or the 
grand dinner, if the material be sufficiently rich. If arti- 
ficial flowers are worn in the hair, they should be of the 
choicest description. The fan should be perfect in its way, 
and the gloves should be quite fresh. Every trifle in a 
lady's costume should be, as far as she can afford it, fault- 
less. She should prefer to go out in a simple gown rather 
than with false lace, or with soiled gloves. 

Ball dressing requires less art than the nice gradations 
of costume in the dinner dress and the dress for small even- 
ing parties. For a ball, everything light and diaphanous, 
somewhat fanciful and airy, for all save dowagers. AVhat 
are called good dresses seldom look well at a ball. The 
heavy, richly-trimmed silk, is only appropriate to those 
who do not dance. 

Much jewelry is out of place for young- ladies at any 
time. Diamonds and camel's hair shawls are considered 
unsuitable for unmarried ladies until they have passed a 
certain age. Handkerchiefs trimmed with lace should be 
reserved for balls and evening parties. 

Natural flowers are always more youthful than artificial 
ones. 

Perfumes, if used at all, should be used in the strictest 
moderation. To be tolerable, they must be of the most 



266 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

recherehi kind. Musk and patchouli should always be 
avoided, as people of sensitive temperament are often made 
ill by them. Cologne water of the best quality is never 
offensive. 

Opera dress for matinees may be as elegant as for morn- 
ing calls. A bonnet is always worn, even by those who 
occupy boxes, but it may be as dressy as one chooses to 
make it. In the evening ladies are at liberty to wear 
evening dresses, with ornaments in the hair instead of a 
bonnet; and no one who has noticed the great difference in 
the appearance of the house when ladies wear light colors, 
will wish to take away from the effect by wearing dark 
hues. Philadelphia has one of the prettiest opera-houses 
in America, and when it was the custom for ladies there 
to dress for the dress-circle and parquette, as they do still 
elsewhere, the house on an opera-night rivalled in effect a 
London audience. It has been said that the best-dressed 
women and the worst-dressed men are found among the 
Russians, the French, and Americans, while English gen- 
tlemen are left to carry off the palm for good dress, over 
all other nations. The Germans and Scandinavians, as a 
rule, are still worse-dressed, although there are many among 
them whose dress could not be improved, according to our 
present ideas of wdiat is correct. 

Fashions are constantly changing, and those who do not 
adopt the extremes, can well afford to feel satisfied with the 
medium, for so many are the prevailing modes at the pres- 
ent time, that among them may be found one to suit every 
style of form and face 

The secret simply consists in a woman's knowing the 
three grand unities — her own station, her own age and her 
own points ; and no woman can dress well who does not. 
With this knowledge she turns a cold eye to the assurances 
of shopmen, and the recommendations of milliners. She 



MOURNING. 267 

cares not how new or original a pattern may be, if it be 
ugly; or bow recent a shape, if it be awkward. Not that 
her costume is always new; on the contrary, she wears 
many a cheap dress, but it is always pretty, and many an 
old one, but it is always good. She deals in no gaudy con- 
fusion of colors, nor does she affect a studied primness or 
sobriety ; but she either refreshes you with a spirited con- 
trast, or composes you with a judicious harmony. 

After this, we need not say that whoever is attracted by 
the costume will not be disappointed in the wearer. She 
may not be handsome nor accomplished, but we will answer 
for her being even-tempered, well-informed, thoroughly 
sensible and a complete gentlewoman. After all, in all 
these important matters of dress, it is the wearer's own 
sense on which their proper application depends. 

MOURNING. 

The people of the United States are the only people 
who have no prescribed periods for the wearing of mourn- 
ing garments. This causes some families to appear want- 
ing in respect for the memory of the departed, and others 
to be ostentatiously long in displaying the emblems of 
their sorrow and unchristian want of resignation. Others 
wear mourning long after their hearts have ceased to mourn. 
Where there is no profound grief, no rules are needed ; but 
where the affliction is of a lighter nature, then comes in 
the need of an observance of fixed times for wearing mourn- 
ing garb, if worn at all. Many are beginning to follow 
the sensible custom, introduced in England, of leaving off 
all bright colors and adhering strictly to black, without 
using; the materials which are confined to mourning dress; 
and many more are reserving the sad privilege of following 
beloved remains to their last resting-place, without the 
unwelcome presence of others outside of their own imme- 



268 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

diate families. Before this custom was introduced, very 
often only the male relatives and friends went to the in- 
terment. Now, where inclination leads, all the near of kin 
are present at this sad rite. The period of retirement from 
the world was once more protracted than it is, now that 
European customs are more generally followed, excepting 
in such cases as the heart dictates a longer seclusion. 

Formerly, mourning was worn in England both for a 
longer period and of a much deeper character than is usual 
at the present time. Two years were not considered too 
long a time for a father or a mother. Now, custom pre- 
scribes only one year. It is also considered better form now 
to wear plainer and less ostentatiously heavy and expensive 
habiliments. Widows wear deep mourning for one year; 
then ordinary mourning as long a time as they may wish. 
Deep mourning is considered to be woollen "stuff" and 
crape. Second mourning is black silk trimmed with crape. 
Half-mourning is black and white. Complimentary mourn- 
ing is black silk without crape. These different stages are 
less observed everywhere, outside of courts, than formerly. 
The French divide mourning garb into three classes, — 
deep, ordinary, and half mourning. In deep mourning, 
black woollen cloths only are worn; in ordinary mourning, 
silk and woollen both ; and in half-mourning, black and 
white, gray and violet. In France, etiquette prescribes for 
a husband one year and six weeks ; six months of deep 
mourning, six of ordinary, and six weeks half- mourning. 
For a wife, a father, a mother, six months; three deep and 
three half-mourning. For a grandparent, two months and 
a half, slight mourning. For a brother or sister, two months, 
one of which is deep mourning. For an uncle or an aunt, 
three weeks of ordinary mourning, and two weeks for a 
cousin. While wearing deep mourning, one does not go 
into society, neither are visits received. In the United 



MOURNING. 269 

States we have no fixed rules, but of late years the retire- 
ment from the world, after the loss of a near relative, has 
been much shortened. For one year, no formal visiting 
is undertaken, and no entertaining nor receiving, save in 
exceptional cases. Mourning (or black) is worn for a hus- 
band or a wife two years : one year deep, one year light. 
For parents, from one to two years ; and for brothers and 
sisters that have reached maturity, one year. Those who 
are invited to a funeral, though not related, must go en- 
tirely in black, wearing black gloves and a black beaver 
hat. To appear in hats of felt or straw, is wanting in due 
respect to customs. 

About a week after the funeral, friends call on the be- 
reaved family, and acquaintances within a month. The 
calls of the latter are not repeated until cards of acknowl- 
edgment have been received by the family, the leaving of 
which announces that they are ready to see their friends. It 
is the custom for intimate friends to wear no bright colors 
when making their calls of condolence. 

In making the first calls of condolence, none but the most 
intimate friends ask to sec the family. Short notes of con- 
dolence, expressing the deepest sympathy, when genuine, 
are always acceptable, and help to comfort stricken hearts, 
like oil poured into bleeding wounds. Formal notes of 
condolence are no longer sent. 

" Console if you will, I can bear it ; 
'Tis only a waste of breath ; 
Not all the preaching since Adam 
Has made death other than death," 

is the language of most hearts in hours of deep bereave- 
ment; but those who have known anvthinp; of the un- 
sounded depths of sorrow do not attempt consolation. All 
that they try to do is to find words wherein to express their 
deep sympathy with the grief-stricken one. 



270 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Form of such a Letter, copied from one received. 
My darling : 



We have just received 's letter and jour few touch- 
ing lines. They almost broke my heart. Oh, that I could 
fly to you, and in some way be of the least comfort to you. 
You poor, bereaved mother ! I can offer no consolation, 
for I can feel none. What more than mortal anguish you 
have gone through ! My very heart bleeds for you. May 
our heavenly Father help you. He only can. Take care 
of yourself for the sake of all who love you so much. I 
feel the most distracting solicitude about you. 

Such letters are indeed comforting to bruised and break- 
ing hearts, knitting in closer affection the bonds and ties 
of relationship or friendship. Ah, why is it that sorrow 
must so often hold the lantern, which out of the darkness 
and turmoil of the world flashes its light suddenly upon 
the well-springs of love, and reveals to us the pure and 
calm depths of its ofttimes neglected waters? A writer in 
the " New York Evangelist" says : Do not keep the alabaster 
boxes of your love and tenderness sealed up until your 
friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak 
approving, cheering words while their ears can hear them, 
and while their hearts can be thrilled by them. The flow- 
ers you mean to send for their coffins, send to brighten and 
sweeten their homes before they leave them. I would 
rather have a bare coffin without a flower, and a funeral 
without a eulogy, than a life without the sweetness of love 
and sympathy. Post-mortem kindnesses do not cheer the 
burdened spirit. Flowers on the coffin cast no fragrance 
backward over the weary days. 

Nor are they grateful offerings to sensitive hearts, while 
the dead remain unburied. They seem to mock the grief, 
instead of lightening it. " I never wish to see a flower 



MOURNING. 271 

ao-ain," was the cry that came from an anguished mother's 
heart, tortured with the memories that flowers must always 
bring her, such a sea of garlands had flowed in for her dead 
son at the time of his burial. The hearts that ached with 
her own had followed a custom, now, happily for the 
afflicted, growing daily in disfavor. 

A few rose-buds, or white flowers, for a child, or for a 
young girl, are far more suitable and acceptable than blos- 
soms wired into crowns, crosses, and wreaths. 

Let flowers, then, be sent to the bereaved, in token -of 
sympathy, in due time after the burial, and not for the 
dead ; and let us all so conduct ourselves towards the living 
that we shall have no memories of unkindness shown them, 
to add, what Whittier calls "the saddest burden of hu- 
manity" to our lives — "remorse over the dead." 

If we were only half as lenient to the living as we are 
to the dead, says Lady Blessington, how much happiness 
might we render them, and from how much vain and bitter 
remorse might we be spared, when the grave, the all-atoning 
grave, has closed over them ! 

The fear of not showing sufficient respect to the memory 
of the dead, often causes a longer exclusion from the world 
than the feelings dictate. Therefore prescribed periods, 
like those which the nations of Europe decree, ought to be 
adopted by us, and those who wish could increase the 
period, according to their desires. 

Real grief needs no appointed time for seclusion, or for 
wearing the habiliments of mourning. It is the dutv of 

O Or 

every one to interest himself or herself in accustomed ob- 
jects of care as soon as it is possible to make the exertion; 
for in fulfilling our duties to the living we best show the 
strength of our affection for the dead, as well as our sub- 
mission to the will of Him who knows what is better for 
our dear ones than we can know or dream. But submis- 



272 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

sion does not come with the blow that smites us. Our 
first cry is : 

" O Christ! that it were possible 
For one short hour to see 
The souls we love, that they might tell 
Us what and where they be!" 

It is only after we have walked with Sorrow, hand in 
hand, with slow feet, and eyes that see not for the tears, 
crying for rest and praying for release, that we come at last 
to the heights of resignation, where her rent veil falls apart, 
and we behold her, radiant, grand and calm, and learn in 
her restful embrace that the angel Sorrow is also the angel 
Peace. 

Ah, how much sooner would we reach those heights, 
could we but have that living faith which would keep in 
our minds the truth that 

" Ever near us, though unseen, 

The dear immortal spirits tread ; 
For all the boundless universe 
Is life, — there are no dead." 

Our Saviour has taught us that death is not the evening, 
but the morning of life ; not a rocky barrier, but an illu- 
mined gateway, a covered bridge that opens into light. 

" We bow our heads, 
At going out; we shrink, and enter straight 
Another golden chamber of the King's, 
Larger than this we leave, and lovelier." 



SALUTATIONS. 27-3 



CHAPTER IX. 



SALUTATIONS — THE PROMENADE — INTRODUCTIONS— AMERI- 
CAN MEN— ENGLISHMEN — THE LOBRED TYPE OF 
WOMEN— SELF-RESPECT. 

" The salutation is the touchstone of good breeding." — St. Loup. 

u That self-respect, which is at the same time always so full of 
respect toward others, is the peculiar ornament of court life." — ■ 
Auerbacli. 

" What we call 'formulas' are not in their origin bad ; they are 
indisputably good. Formula is method, habitude ; found wherever 
man is found. Formulas fashion themselves as paths do, as beaten 
highways, leading toward some sacred or high object, whither many 
men are bent. Consider it: One man, full of heartfelt, earnest im- 
pulse, finds out a way of doing somewhat — were it uttering of his 
soul's reverence for the Highest, were it but of fitly saluting his fellow- 
man. An inventor was needed to do that, a poet ; he has articulated 
the dim, struggling thought that dwelt in his own and many hearts. 
This is his way of doing that; these are his footsteps, the beginning 
of a ' path.' And now see, the second man travels naturally in the 
footsteps of his foregoer ; it is the easiest method. In the footsteps 
of his foregoer, yet with improvements, with changes, where such 
seem good ; at all events with enlargements, the path ever widening 
itself as more travel it, till at last there is a broad highway, whereon 
the whole world may travel and drive. While there remains a city 
or shrine, or any reality to drive to, at the farther end, the highway 
shall be right welcome." — Carlyle. 

" A bow/' says La Fontaine, " is a note drawn at sight. 
You are bound to acknowledge it immediately, and to the 
full amount. " According to circumstances, it should be 
respectful, cordial, civil, or familiar. An inclination of 
the head is often sufficient between gentlemen, or a gesture 
of the hand, or the mere touching of the hat ) but in bow- 
is 



274 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

ing to a lady the hat must be lifted. If you know people 
slightly, you recognize them slightly; if you know them 
well, you bow with more cordiality. The body is not bent 
at all in bowing, as in the days of the old school forms of 
politeness; the inclination of the head is all that is neces- 
sary. One's own judgment ought to be sufficient as to the 
empressement of the salutation. In bowing to a lady, the 
hat is only lifted from the head, not held out at arm's length 
for a view of the interior. If smoking, the gentleman 
manages to withdraw his cigar before lifting his hat ; or, 
should he happen to have his hand in his pocket, he re- 
moves it. 

Gentlemen who are driving, are often embarrassed by 
bowing acquaintances. They are obliged to keep a tight 
hold of the reins, and this is impossible if they remove 
their hats. A wellbred foreigner would never dream of 
saluting a lady by raising his whip to his hat. American 
gentlemen have adopted this custom, but it would be still 
better if they would set the fashion of bowing without 
touching the hat or raising the hand, when holding the 
reins. Our ideas of what constitutes politeness in such 
points are entirely controlled by custom, and if it were an 
understood thing that gentlemen who are driving are not 
expected to take off their hats, the simple inclination of the 
head, a trifle lower, perhaps, than when the hat is lifted, 
would soon be accepted as in good form by all sensible peo- 
ple. It certainly is a more respectful form of salutation 
than raising the whip, which shocks those who have not 
become habituated to this modern innovation. 

The Prince of Wales, not very long ago, was coming 
down the steep hill at Windsor with a pair of restive beasts, 
his cigar in his mouth, his whip and reins in his right hand. 
It was the work of an instant only to take his cigar from 
his mouth, shift bis whip and reins, and lift his hat, in pass- 



SALUTATIONS. 275 

ing a lady whom he but slightly knew. There are but 
few, however, who could have so skilfully managed to do 
all this. 

A wellbred person instinctively bows the moment that 
he recognizes an acquaintance, at the instant of the first 
meeting of the eyes. According to the rule of courts, and 
of good society everywhere, any one who has been intro- 
duced to you, or any one to whom you have been intro- 
duced, is entitled to this mark of respect. 

A bow does not entail a calling acquaintance, and to 
neglect it shows neglect in early education, as well as a 
deficiency in cultivation and in the instincts of refine- 
ment; so that the truth of St. Loup's assertion, that the 
bow is the touchstone of good breeding, is made good. 

Its entire neglect reveals the character and the training 
of the person ; the manner of its observance reveals the very 
shades of breeding that exist between the illbred and the 
wellbred. 

In thoroughfares where persons are constantly passing, 
gentlemen keep to the left of a lady, without regard to the 
wall, in order to protect her from the jostling elbows of 
the unmannerly; unless a lady prefers to walk on the 
gentleman's left,/o?' his protection. 

A gentleman walking with a lady returns a bow made 
to her (lifting his hat not too far from his head), although 
the one bowing is an entire stranger to him. 

It is a civility to return a bow, although you do not know 
the one who is bowing to you. The more cultivated a per- 
son is, the more prompt he will be found in such civilities. 
Either the one who bows knows you, or he has mistaken 
you for some one else. In either case, you should return 
the bow, and probably the mistake will be discovered to 
have occurred from want of a quick recognition on your 
own part, or from some resemblance that you bear to 



276 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

another. The bow costs you nothing, and the withholding 
of it shows you to be either gauche or rude. 

" My boy, you take off your hat too often/ 7 said a father 
to his son, as they were walking together. " I believe 
you can't pass a dog without touching it, and that you 
would say ' I beg pardon ' if you trod upon his tail." 

" Mother says I must take it off whenever I pass any 
one that I know, and that I must touch it even when I 
pass the servants in the street. She says General Wash- 
ington took his hat off to his black men because he didn't 
want them to be more polite than he was." 

The father did not pursue the subject ; but the lesson 
was not lost upon him, for, of course, he did not wish his 
son to excel him in civility. No one will deny that the 
difference between wellbred and illbred children is in a 
great measure due to the precepts of parents; and parents, 
who have the right ideas with regard to training, will 
teach their children to pay as much regard to the feelings 
of the lower classes as to the feelings of those who are 
their equals. There is no one whose good will is not 
worth having; and no act of courtesy, no kindness, is ever 
entirely thrown away. There is an Arab proverb : " Do 
good, and throw it into the sea. If the fishes do not 
observe it, God will." The truth of Emerson's assertion, 
that beautiful behavior is more than a beautiful face and 
form, finds proof in a remark made by a child concerning 
a lady whose manners were faultless, but who did not pos- 
sess any remarkable degree of beauty. 

" Miss Consuelo is the most beautiful lady in the 
world," said the boy, coming in from his morning ride on 
his pony. 

" Consuelo de Forrest is no beauty," was the mother's 
answer. " Mrs. Greatdash is much handsomer than she 



SALUTATIONS. 277 

" "Well, I don't think so; Mrs. Greatdash never bows 
to me when she passes nie, and Miss Consuelo always 
does." 

In no one of the trivial observances that good society 
calls for is there a more unerring test of the breeding, 
training, nurture, or culture of a person than the manner 
in which the salutation of recognition is made. It should 
be prompt as soon as the eyes meet, whether on the street 
or in a room. The intercourse need go no further, but 
that bow must be made. To omit it is to stamp yourself 
as lowbred. There are but few laws which have more 
cogent reasons for their observance than this. If the bow 
is not exchanged at the moment of the first meeting of the 
eyes, what a prodigious tax upon the memory it would be, 
destroying much of the pleasure of social intercourse ; while, 
if you bow as you recognize your friends in turn, there is 
no difficulty in remembering with whom you have ex- 
changed salutations. In a drive upon a crowded prome- 
nade, it is not always possible to observe this rule, however, 
as the carriages frequently bowl past each other so -swiftly 
as to prevent instant recognition where the face is not 
thoroughly a familiar one. This rule holds good under 
all circumstances, whether within doors or without. 
Those who abstain from bowing at one time, and bow at 
another, need never be surprised to find the well bred 
avoiding any continuation of an acquaintance that they 
are made to feel can never be a congenial one ; and such 
individuals must not shrink from knowing that the odious 
word "snobs" is applied to them by those who are not 
snobbish, even though an absent mind is the cause of the 
remissness. 

The author of "Social Etiquette" says: "Ladies who 
entertain hospitably, and possess hosts of acquaintances, 
are likelv to invite manv voung gentlemen with whose 



278 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

families they are familiar; but as they seldom have an 
opportunity of seeing their young friends except for a 
moment or two during an evening party, it would be 
strange if, sometimes, these ladies should not fail to recog- 
nize a recent guest when they meet on the promenade. 
Young gentlemen are oversensitive about these matters, 
and imagine that there must be a reason for the apparent 
indifference. That the lady invites him to her house is an 
evidence of her regard, but she cannot charge her memory 
with the features of her multitude of young acquaintances, 
much as she would like to show this courtesy to them all." 

Young persons often wait for the recognition of the 
elder, having been instructed by books that it is the place 
of the elder to show the first recognition. No books can 
replace the training of parents in such matters, or the in- 
stincts of kind hearts. 

The introduction that entitles to recognition having been 
once made, it is the duty of the younger person to recall 
himself or herself to the recollection of the elder person, 
if there is much difference in age, by bowing each time of 
meeting, until the recognition becomes mutual. As persons 
advance in life they look for these attentions upon the part 
of the young, and it may be, in some instances, that it is 
the only way which the young have of showing their ap- 
preciation of courtesies extended to them by the old or 
middle-aged. Persons who have large circles of acquaint- 
ance often confuse the faces of the young whom they know 
with the familiar faces which they meet and do not know, 
and from frequent errors of this kind they fall into the 
habit of waiting to catch some look or gesture of recog- 
nition. Only persons of a limited acquaintance, or kings 
and queens, who have chamberlains or nomenclators to 
utter in low tones the names of those whom they approach, 
can be expected to remember the faces and names of all 



SALUTATIONS. 279 

who have been introduced to them ; and no king, nor 
queen, nor any man or woman possessing culture and self- 
respect, would pass knowingly an acquaintance without a 
salutation, unless that person had forfeited the claim which 
an introduction imposes. 

Should any one really wish to avoid a bowing acquaint- 
ance with a person who has once been properly introduced, 
he may do so by looking aside, or dropping the eyes as the 
person approaches, for if the eyes meet there is no alterna- 
tive, bow he must. 

Bowing once to a person passing upon a public prom- 
enade or drive is all that civility requires. If the person 
is a friend, it is in better form, the second and subsequent 
passings, should you catch his eye, to smile slightly, in- 
stead of bowing repeatedly. If he is an acquaintance, it 
is best to avert the eyes. 

A bow should never be accompanied by a broad smile, 
even where you are well acquainted ; although cultivated 
men and women of the world seldom fail, when they bow, 
to let that beam of good-will lighten their eyes, which 
distinguishes the recognition of such from the idiotic bow 
of the peasant to his superior, in which not a muscle moves, 
and there is no lighting up of the eyes, but instead an ex- 
pression that seems to betoken entire vacuity of mind. 

" Avoid one of those ' grins ' which, beginning at the 
lower corner of the left ear, go all the way across the face 
to the right ear." 

" You should never speak to an acquaintance without a 
smile in your eyes," says an English author, adding, 

" Aspire to calm confidence rather than to loftiness in 
your manner of salutation." 

A gentleman on horseback, who sees that a lady wishes 
to stop him, will dismount and walk by her side, leading 



280 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

his horse, for there are few occasions on which it is per- 
missible to stand while talking in the street. 

A lady may permit a gentleman who is walking with 
her to carry any very small parcel that she has, but never 
more than one. 

A lady cannot take the arms of two gentlemen, nor 
should two ladies take each one arm of a gentleman, 
" sandwiching " him, as it were. 

Ladies cannot talk or call across a street. 

Gentlemen do not smoke when driving or walking with 
ladies, nor on promenades much frequented. 

" Never stare at any one/' is a rule with no exceptions. 

" Why have you taken such an aversion to Mr. Line ?" 
asked a lady of a gentleman. 

" Because he stares at every woman he passes. I can 
tell as well as any other man the points of every woman 
that passes me, but no one catches me staring at her like a 
Hottentot," was the answer. 

When a gentleman is introduced to a lady, both bow 
slightly, and the gentleman opens conversation. It is the 
place of the one who is introduced to make the first 
remark. The reason for this is so evident that it needs no 
explanation. , 

A gentleman must not shake hands with a lady until 
she has made the first movement. It would be excessively 
rude and underbred not to give his hand instantly should 
she extend her own. Our American gentlemen are not as 
much given to handshaking as Englishmen are. 

A married lady should always extend her hand to a 
stranger brought to her house by a common friend, as an 
evidence of her cordial welcome. Where an introduction 
is for dancing, there is no shaking of hands. 

A gentleman when stopped by a lady does not allow 
her to stand while talking with him, but offers to turn and 



SALUTATIONS. 281 

walk with her. Unless a lady has something of importance 
to say, she should not so tax the time of a business man, 
although of course if he has an engagement to meet he is 
at liberty to plead that as an excuse as soon as he can. 

When a gentleman joins a lady on the street, turning to 
walk with her, he is not obliged to escort her home. He 
can take his leave without making any apology. 

Never give the cut direct, unless you are justified in doing 
so by some inexcusable rudeness. It is a much better way, 
when persons speak disagreeably, as people have a way of 
doing when they have taken offence, to return the recog- 
nition as coldly as possible, and upon the next occasion, 
when you meet them, to turn away, or look downwards in 
passing. This is much less rude than to give the " cut" 
direct, which is done by returning a bow with a stony stare. 

A lady who had time after time encountered one of these 
eyelid and chin movements in an acquaintance in place of 
a bow, and knowing herself to be perfectly guiltless of any 
desire to give offence, finally stopped the lady when pass- 
ing, and said to her : "Sometimes I think you do not re- 
member me, Mrs. Dash." u Oh, yes, I remember you 
perfectly," was the answer, "but as you have never called 
upon me, I did not think it was necessary to keep up a 
mere speaking acquaintance." The lady, who had first 
spoken, begged the other's pardon for having troubled her 
so long under such circumstances, and never troubled her 
again. But as it is better to err on the side of being too 
charitable than to allow wounded self-love to make you 
resentful, you should, when there has been any affection or 
congeniality, make sure, if possible, of the changed feeling 
of acquaintances before allowing their changed manner to 
influence you to drop them. 

A lady, who had for a long time borne the slight and 
haughty bow of an acquaintance whom she valued as a 



282 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

friend, at last said to her: " What have I done to displease 
you, that your manner has changed so entirely towards 
rue?" The acquaintance replied: "I do not know what 
you mean." " I mean, that instead of bowing cordially 
to me as you once did, you bow in such a way, that had it 
not been for your kindness to me in a time of trial, I would 
have stopped bowing altogether." "Why, it is yourself 
who has caused it," was the reply. u You were so very 
capricious in your w r ay of bowing to me — sometimes so 
pleasantly, and again so distantly, that I came very near 
ceasing to bow." The lady who had entered the complaint, 
had been entirely unaware of any change in herself, and 
she was astounded by the accusation. She went to one of 
her oldest and best friends, and asked, " Have I a capricious 
way of speaking? Am I not always the same to you?" 
Her. friend replied, " Indeed you are not always the same. 
You occasionally speak to me in such a way that did I not 
know your distraite manner when you have any anxiety or 
care, I should not trouble you to bow to me again in pass- 
ing." Such possibilities should make friends very slow 
to take offence, for it is far better to forbear ninety and 
nine times than to be unjust once to a friend. 

The two most elegant men of their day, Charles II. 
and George IV., never failed to take off their hats to the 
meanest of their subjects. Always bear this in mind, and 
remember that, even in this age of deteriorated manners, 
there are many ladies and gentlemen of cultivation who 
never pass any one whom they know without some token 
of recognition, according to the class of the person, or, if 
of their own class, according to the degree of the acquaint- 
anceship. 

" A gentleman cannot cut a lady under any circumstances 
whatever," is the one invariable rule of good society ; but 
when a woman makes herself conspicuous by rouged cheeks, 



SALUTATIONS. 283 

blackened eyelids, enamelled complexion, or vulgarities in 
dress or conduct, one may surely be excused for persisting 
in not meeting her eves. The woman who after bavins: 
once seen that she is avoided continues to call attention to 
herself, cannot possess sufficient refinement to make it pos- 
sible to wound her feelings by avoiding her. 

In bowing to a lady, according to our present ideas, 
the hat must be entirely lifted from the head. If it were 
otherwise, merely touching the rim would be preferable, 
for many reasons which all gentlemen will understand. 
There is said to be a movement on foot now in Germany 
to institute this reform, but the young should not be the 
ones to lead in such innovations. 

A wise woman said to a young bey, who insisted on 
wearing his hair Ions; and bore with martvr-like conceit 
the sniffs and sneers of the other boys in the college: 
"You had better have your hair cut like other folks, Law- 
rence, there will be enough, and more than enough, serious 
things worth fighting for in the world, and you had better 
keep your pluck to defend your principles." 

A lady may request a gentleman not to keep his hat off 
while standing in the street, or at her carriage, to talk with 
her; but a gentleman should never say to a lady, in her 
own house, " Do not rise," in taking leave of her. If he 
is a young man she will not think of rising ; if he is her 
elder, she will rise notwithstanding the request. 

Wherever we find a society attaching more value to out- 
ward distinctions than to inner worth, there shall we find 
men and women careless of those observances which a truly 
refined and cultivated society regards. 

"It makes no difference here whether an Englishman 
is a man of culture or an ignoramus, whether he is well- 
bred or illbred, whether he is commonplace or a genius," 
said a lady at a watering-place one summer; "if he is 



284 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

introduced into fashionable society by fashionable people, 
he receives just as much attention as if he were a savant" 
If this is a fact, what is the use of having an exclusive so- 
ciety? If the lowbred, bad-mannered and uncultivated 
are not excluded, who in the name of Fashion is to be ex- 
cluded ? Is society a hot-bed of fools that it receives the 
one with arms as open as the other? Is money to be its 
passport then, and only poverty excluded? Let ancestry 
rather be the test, and let those whose families antedate the 
Revolution come into power again. We should see as 
much of a revolution in social life brought about as was 
seen then in the life of our nation. 

" Pray tell me," asked a gentleman, " how is it that, 
after an absence of nearly twenty years, I come back to find 
only new names among leaders of fashion ? Have the old 
families all gone out of the world and taken with them the 
charming manners that characterized the best society 
then ?" It is not necessary to answer the question here, 
as so many readers will be able to answer it satisfactorily 
for themselves? 

Every one in society sees and knows the glaring differ- 
ences that exist between its members; how a highbred 
woman will instantly put strangers, the young, all persons 
with whom she comes in contact, perfectly at ease • while 
the woman of society who has not always moved in well- 
bred circles and who has no transmitted culture to soften 
her asperities of nature, will act like a cold shower-bath 
upon sensitive organizations. 

There are some hard, cold, selfish natures in society, 
which 

" Surely must be of nature curst, 
Since of the best they make the worst." 

They misconstrue acts of kindness, or of civility, until 



THE LOBRED TYPE OP WOMEN. 285 

the young fear to be civil; they wound tender human hearts 
until the constant cicatrizing of the wounds sears and 
hardens them into that pitiable state in which they become 
inhuman hearts. 

"We found Miss Boncur so charming in every way 
until the Lobred girls came in, and then all was changed. 
We were none of us at our ease, and Ethel and I were glad 
to hurry away; yet, the very next evening at Mrs. Black's 
reception they were as civil as possible, because they wanted 
to make use of us. I feel as though I had lost all my self- 
respect since, because I allowed them to, although I could 
not help myself/' said a lovely young debutante who had 
been with her cousin to return the call of an older society 
belle, meeting at the house some acquaintances who had 
not been taught that the first and the surest test of good- 
breeding is found in the art of putting every one with 
whom you are thrown at ease. Whoever fails to do that 
is not well bred. 

Persons of the highest rank in Europe, and those most 
distinguished for cultivation and fashion combined in 
America, receive even strangers in such a way as to make 
them feel as if they had known them all their lives. And 
if so with strangers, how much more charming and win- 
ning are they with their acquaintances ! — always the same ; 
not formal, haughty, and distant one day, and familiar the 
next, when favors are wanted, as all underbred people are 
apt to be. Without that feeling of equality which is 
everywhere found in the highest society anything like 
agreeable intercourse would be impossible; the very word 
"society" presupposes equality, for society is the inter- 
course of persons on a footing of apparent equality ; and 
the moment that persons are admitted into it who are not 
cultivated, who are bad-mannered, all enjoyment ceases for 
the wellbred, the highly cultivated. Where one's amour 



280 SENSIBLE ETTQUETTE. 

propre is wounded at every turn, and the porcupine quills 
of resentment are bristling on all sides, what can be ex- 
pected in time but a community of — pardon, but the truth 
must be spoken, even if at our own expense, — what can be 
expected but a society of social hedge-hogs? In circles 
where Mrs. Folly is toadied because of her " swell " din- 
ners and her epicurean suppers, and Mrs. Taukwell is 
banished because of her inability to give expensive enter- 
tainments, where Mr. Cuttum bows when he feels in the 
humor, and neglects to bow when he chooses; where 
young girls freeze their companions with cold words of 
greeting, and still colder glances o£ recognition one day, 
and then, finding themselves where there is a scarcity of 
creation's lords, make use of the same acquaintances to 
relieve the awkwardness of isolation the next, what can be 
expected but a society of inane women, odious snobs, and 
heartless, illbred young people? 

The question may be asked : "Is it possible that rude- 
nesses are so common in good society, that they are the 
rule instead of the exception ?" The story of the invalid 
and the Shanghai cock, told by the late Mr. Charles Astor 
Bristed in one of his papers upon the impoliteness of our 
people, answers this question. " He doesn't crow all the 
time — perhaps he doesn't crow very often; but I never 
know when he will crow, and I am always afraid he is 
going to." 

Any young girl of sensibility who has once met with 
such an experience as that of the young debutante, lives 
thereafter in an almost craven fear of its repeatal. She is 
afraid to show cordiality where she feels it, she cannot 
reveal herself as she would, she moves under restraint, and 
all this repressal of the genuine good-will and kindness of 
her heart tends to dwarf and stunt her moral growth. The 
lady to whom the debutante's remark was addressed, had 



THE L0BRED TYPE OF WOMEN. 287 

seen something of the most distinguished circles of the best 
society, both at home and abroad, and had had occasion to 
notice the peculiarities of the Lobred family everywhere; 
she was able to show the spirited girl how much more 
nobly, as well as wisely, she had acted in not resenting the 
conduct of the young lady, who had been haughty one day 
and familiar the next; for if, as has been well said, the 
consciousness of being well dressed confers upon a woman 
that peace of mind which even religion may fail to give, so 
the returning of good for evil not only evinces nobleness 
of nature, but it bestows that consciousness of superiority 
which makes a woman feel at ease everywhere, and under 
all circumstances. She will pity the rude quite too 
much to wish to resent their course in any way ; she will 
look down upon Mr. Cuttum with a touch of scorn in her 
compassion that she will have to fight against in order to 
overcome; and, more than all, she will feel sorry for the 
Miss Lobreds of society, who are wasting the golden op- 
portunities of their youth. Now is the time for them to 
make the friends that some day they will want; and they 
could do it so easily, if they would only be as affable to all 
as they are to the Misses Folly ; but if their manners 
toward their young companions (of course not even the 
Miss Lobreds would show themselves so vulgar as to be 
wanting in respect and deference to their elders) are repel- 
ling, what will they gain? Only this, that their young 
acquaintances, who are equally illbred, will call them 
" nasty ," "stuck-up," "vixenish," "prim as old maids," 
and say many other disagreeable things of them. Those 
who are wellbred, will call no names; but not even the 
charity that thinketh no evil can keep them from despising 
such conduct. However, even the Lobreds of society have 
a mission to fulfil. By showing how very disagreeable 
bad-mannered people can make themselves, and how 



288 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

thoroughly uncomfortable they can cause all to feel who 
come in contact (socially) with them, they act as a stimulus 
to others to improve their manners ; and thus they are of 
some use in the world. 

" Woe to him by whom offences come/' says Scripture, 
and the woe does come sooner or later to all who have no 
consideration for the feelings of others. The mills of the 
gods grind slowly, but they grind surely. In a world 
where love is at a premium, and even respect is not cheap, 
it is a pity to add by your bad manners to the number of 
those who dislike you, and to give public evidence of those 
qualities of the heart, upon which manners with training 
depend. Good manners are the fruits of a kind heart and 
careful home nurture; bad manners are the fruits of a 
coarse nature and unwise training. 

Manners must not be confounded though with the cor- 
rect observance of social laws, which are but arbitrary 
rules, differing in various ages and countries. These are 
sometimes absurd when introduced into a land that they 
were not made for; whereas, good manners, founded as 
they are on common-sense and kindliness of heart, are al- 
ways and everywhere the same; the fashion never changes. 

Manners are not idle, but the fruit 
Of noble nature and of loyal mind." 

The secret of the good manners of many in the lower 
classes, who have had no training, lies in their nature or 
disposition. The civility of the negro, which is proverbial, 
is said to arise from his natural kindliness of heart. Good 
manners are as important to the working-classes as they 
are to those for whom they work — important in the work- 
shop, in the street, in domestic life, everywhere. 

The servant who applies for a situation is judged by his 
manners. If he seats himself in the presence of a lady 



GOOD MANNERS. 289 

before he is asked to take a'seafc, if he approaches too near, 
or if he has not a respectful bearing, the lady, who does 
not wish to entail upon herself the trouble of training a 
servant, is able to tell him that he will not suit her, with- 
out asking a question. In New England, it was formerly 
the custom for the mistress of a household to offer a seat to 
every one, "gentle or simple," who entered her doors. It is 
not now the custom, in engaging servants, to ask them to 
be seated. Servants, who cannot stand while answering 
the questions put to them, pronounce their own incapacity 
by such an exhibition of want of training. 

And so, in every class of life — in all professions and 
occupations, good manners are necessary to success. The 
business man has no stock-in-trade that pays him better 
than a good address. If the retail dealer wears his hat on 
his head in the presence of ladies who come to buy of him, 
if he does not see that the heavy door of his shop is opened 
and closed for them, if he seats himself in their presence, 
they w T ill not be apt to make his shop a rendezvous, no 
matter how attractive the goods he displays. 

A telling preacher in his opening remarks gains the good- 
will of his hearers, and makes them feel both that he has 
something to say, and that he can say it — by his manner. 
The successful medical man inspires in his patients belief 
in his sympathy and confidence in his skill — as well as 
that hope which is so favorable to longevity — by his man- 
ner. Considering that jurymen are scarcely personifica- 
tions of pure reason unmixed with passion or prejudice, a 
lawyer cannot afford to neglect manner, if he would bring 
twelve men in a body to his way of thinking. And as re- 
gards "the survival of the fittest," in tournaments for. a 
lady's hand, is it not a "natural selection," when the old 
motto, " manners niakyth man," decides the contest ? When 
Demosthenes said that eloquence consisted in three things, 

19 



290 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

" the first action, the second action, the third action/' he is 
supposed to have intended manner alone. 

Good manners are the shadows of virtues, it is said, if not 
virtues themselves. One of the definitions already given, 
is, the art of putting our associates at their ease ; and all 
experience goes to show us, that the higher the station 
of life, when transmitted culture accompanies it, the more 
refined the politeness to equals and inferiors as well as to 
superiors. This is markedly so among the oldest nations 
of Europe. 

Much that is severe has been said lately of the bad man- 
ners of Englishmen, but is it not probable that those who 
make these complaints have had the misfortune to meet 
only representatives of the English Lobred family? A 
writer in the "Contemporary Review" gives, as one reason 
of the bad manners of Englishmen, that they are left more 
than formerly to the training of boorish tutors ; but is it 
not also just as true that some of the women whom titled 
Englishmen have chosen as the mothers of their children 
are not fitted, either by birth or education, to train children 
into wellbred men? And then, too, as a French gentle- 
man recently remarked, Englishmen are so fond of field 
sports and out-of-doors life, that they are much thrown 
with stable-men, book-makers and horse-jockeys, so that 
some among them insensibly imbibe the air and manners 
of this class. They who judge the English by such speci- 
mens of the nation, or by the manners of " commercial 
travellers," do the cultivated classes as much injustice as 
Americans suffer at the hands of a certain English author, 
who, writing upon the subject of good manners, says, " i To 
do in Rome as the Romans do/ applies to every kind of 
society. At the same time, you can never be expected to 
commit a serious breach of manners because our neighbors 
do so. You can never be called on in America to spit 



BAD MANNERS. 291 

about the room, simply because it is a national habit." The 
same writer tells us, " In America a man may go to a ball 
in white ducks." 

Now, although insisting that gentlemen in America do not 
spit about the room, or go to balls in good society generally 
in white ducks, it must be admitted that white ducks are 
occasionally seen in ball-rooms at watering-places, and that 
men in bar-rooms do spit upon the floor; yet, as the class 
who indulge in " white ducks " are given to wearing straw 
hats with frock-coats, they can hardly be taken as Ameri- 
can authorities in dress, by any one. To judge of the 
dress of American gentlemen by such representations, 
would be as unfair as to take the dress and manners of a 
shopkeeper, in England, for the English type of a gentle- 
man. The same writer says : " Insolence is so universal 
in America, that even in what is called good society you 
will meet with it." Evidently this English writer has been 
thrown while here with the Lobred type of society ; and 
not he alone, for a lady writes from an obscure local 
watering-place in Europe ; " Last year at this time I was 
in Newport. This is but a shabby place when compared 
with that charming resort, but it has this advantage over 
its rival, nearly every man whom you meet is a gentle- 
man." 

Upon the same subject a foreign author thus expresses 
himself: "American young men rarely come up to the 
European standard. Their women frequently surpass our 
own ; but in the masculine we take our revenge." 

Vanity, ill-nature, want of sympathy, want of sense — 
these are some of the sources from which bad manners 
spring. Spite, envy, and ill-nature are other sources, an 1 
they are among the most expensive luxuries of life, if 
luxuries they are. None of us can afford to surround our- 
selves with the host of enemies we are sure to make bv 



292 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE* 

indulging in unmannerly habits. Good manners, like 
good words, cost nothing, and are worth everything. Syd- 
ney Smith attributes bad manners to a lack of that fine 
vision which sees little things, a want of that delicate 
touch which handles them, and of that fine sympathy 
which a superior moral organization always bestows. A 
well-mannered man is courteous to all sorts and conditions 
of men. He is respectful to his inferiors, as well as to his 
superiors. Canon Kingsley tells us that the love and 
admiration which Sir Sydney Smith won from every one, 
rich and poor, with whom he came in contact, seemed to 
arise from his treating rich and poor, his own servants, 
the noblemen who were his guests, alike courteously, con- 
siderately, and kindly — so leaving a blessing and reaping 
a blessing wherever he went. 

If kindliness of disposition be the essence of good man- 
ners, the subject is seen at once to shade off into the great 
one of Christianity itself. It is the heart that makes the 
true gentleman, the great theologian, and the good Chris- 
tian. The letters of the Apostle Paul, as well as those of 
his fellow-apostles, are full of sympathy and consideration 
for every one's feelings, because he had learned from Him 
whose sympathy extended even to the greatest of sinners. 

Lord Chesterfield said, A man who does not solidly 
establish, and really deserve a character for truth, probity, 
good manners, and good morals, at his first setting out in 
the world, may impose and shine like a meteor for a very 
short time, but will very soon vanish and be extinguished 
with contempt. 

What sad degeneracy our times show, if such a state of 
things existed in the days of Chesterfield. In the closing 
lines of the same paragraph a truth is embodied which 
never changes in any age or in any society, viz. : People 
easily pardon in young men the common irregularities of 



SELF-RESPECT. 293 

the senses ; but they do not forgive the least vice of the 
heart. Let the young remember this, and keep their 
hearts with all diligence, for out of them are the issues of 
life; and from them proceeds all that is evil, and all that 
is good, in manners, as well as in conduct. 

They who are naturally impulsive, often do themselves 
great injustice for want of that self-control which can 
alone check impulsiveness, leading them to appear to be 
deficient in qualities which really exist in their characters, 
and which, were it not for the injustice which they do 
themselves, would entitle them to the respect which they 
would otherwise merit. A governess once complained to 
a guardian that his ward did not respect her, or feel any 
affection for her. The guardian replied, " If your pupil 
does not treat you with respect, it is simply a confession 
that you do not deserve it. Respect is not a thing that 
can be given or withheld at pleasure ; if you gain her 
respect, you will also gain her affection." Upon further 
inquiries, the guardian found that the child was in a state 
of rebellion, from the fact that the governess had struck 
her across her knuckles with a book used in recitations, 
and then, pitching the book across the room, had ordered 
the child to pick it up. This the young girl refused to 
do, telling her governess that as she had thrown it, it 
might lie there until she had herself picked it up. The 
impulsiveness of the governess had caused her to forget 
the rights of her pupil, and to appear to be wanting in 
that self-respect which leads those who possess it to respect 
the rights of others ; while the less impulsive child was 
able to control any outward manifestations of anger after- 
wards, and to state her cause of grievance so clearly as to 
carry conviction with it. 

" He that ruleth his own spirit is greater than he who 
conquereth a city;" and there is no better foundation for 



294 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

self-respect than those possess who have learned to govern 
themselves. 

Self-respect may be compared to a tree, the flower of 
which is courtesy, and its fruit heroism of character. It 
needs no transplanting from court gardens to flourish in 
our republic. Everywhere those who are worthy of 
respect manifest their respect for the rights and claims of 
others, while those who possess self-conceit, give evidence 
of it by their disregard for the feelings and the rights of 
others. 

Thus society is divided into two classes : those whose 
actions are influenced by self-respect, and those whose 
actions are controlled by self-conceit. The latter are 
moved and swayed by the opinions of the world, by pride 
of pomp and show, by ambition to outvie their compeers. 
They have no true independence of character. Like 
rockets, they may astonish by their brilliancy, misleading 
the young and inexperienced by the glare and the noise 
they create, and also like rockets, they make no lasting 
impression ; while those men and women whose lives are 
governed by that degree of self-respect which brings with 
it respect for the. claims of others, move in their orbit as 
does the sun, bringing life, and warmth, and blessings 
wherever that orbit may be. 

Persons who are endowed with that superior moral or- 
ganization which confers moral courage with self-respect, 
and that fine sympathy and quick intuition which we call 
tact, will, in their family relations, " study for things that 
make for peace," and, " like the gentle summer air, their 
civility will play around all alike," wherever they go. If 
a child needs reproof, comments of praise will be judici- 
ously mingled with it. If some dear one connected by ties 
of blood commits a breach of good manners, or some offence 
against custom, or indulges in a display that is calculated 



FACT. 295 

to give a wrong opinion of his character, the correction will 
be made in a way that will give the least offence. 

At a hotel in a watering-place, X. said to Y., " I wonder 
why that sensible-looking, handsome old gentleman makes 
such a fop of himself, wearing trinkets on his watch-chain, 
and two such large rings on his fingers?" Y. happened to 
be a friend of the old gentleman, and took the first oppor- 
tunity of asking him to let her look at the marvellous "cat's- 
eye" which he wore. Expressing her admiration of it, she 
put it on one of her fingers, saying, " Will you let me wear it 
for a few days ?" Permission given, Y. wore the ring, and 
when she returned it, said, " Do you know that you really 
have a beautiful white hand, and so well formed that it is 
a pity to spoil it with two rings. Besides, that rare an- 
tique looks so much more distinguished alone. 1 wish you 
would not wear the two at the same time." Y. little 
dreamed that, after all the pains she had taken to avoid 
hurting the sensitive feelings of the old gentleman, her 
course would be turned as a battery against her, to prove 
that she was "given to beating around the bush." 

This couplet is again suggested : 

" Surely there are some of nature curst, 
Since of the best they make the worst." 

Charles Lever said : " There is a delicacy of the heart 
as well as of good breeding," and where the two are united 
in one person, there will be found that degree of sensitive- 
ness necessary to produce a regard for the feelings of others. 
Those who possess it feel that there is one thing that is 
worse than to have their own feelings wounded, and that 
is; to have wounded the feelings of one who is dear to 
them. 

The English are said to be more brusque, and to have 
less polish than the people of any other nation ; but those 



296 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

who have been so fortunate as to meet among them true 
gentlemen and gentlewomen, know that they are suscep- 
tible of the very highest polish, as are all solid bodies. 
Where the material is fine, hard and close, delicate and 
good, it can be polished to shine like mirrors of burnished 
steel. Americans possess this capability for polish, only 
they must be careful not to mistake varnish for polish. It 
is only soft bodies which, admit of little polish, that re- 
quire varnish, to which substances it is applied to hide 
all flaws, and to conceal the material beneath its surface. 
However thickly it may be laid on, the false covering will 
chip here and there, and the gloss will be superficial only, 
and will never in reality equal that of true polish of the 
grain. 

An English author writes : '" From mauvais honte, indo- 
lence, shyness, want of ease, or from some false or vulgar 
estimate of what is good taste, many men neglect in tri- 
fling matters that courtesy towards women, which in im- 
portant matters would be more sure to guide them. This 
is not as it should be. A man loses nothing by observing 
these little points, for which there is no better name than 
good manners, which soften the intercourse of life and 
prevent so many difficulties and misunderstandings. It 
often happens that incompatibility is one of the sources 
of bad manners, and that of two people each is afraid of 
the other, and thinks him or her alone rude. But this 
only applies to the association of two, and has no refer- 
ence to the absence of those outward graces w 7 hich in an 
assembly of many are of much effect. If a few of the 
young men of the present day who are particular in the 
observance of forms of courtesy, would show their disap- 
probation of any neglect of them in the still younger gen- 
eration, and could it be understood that all laxity in such 
matters reflects upon the home training, — upon their 



WELLBRED MEN. 297 

mothers and sisters even more than upon themselves, 
much might be done in a short time to remove that which 
is a growing blot on our social habits." 

The same truths are applicable to our own state of 
society : only it must be said that it would be difficult 
to find in our best society such boorishness as some Eng- 
lishmen, moving in exclusive circles at home, have man- 
ifested here. Their manners would be called bad in our 
schoolboys, too bad, indeed, to cite in proof of the asser- 
tion. 

There are no men of any nation whose manners are more 
pleasing than are the manners of our gentlemen. All that 
we have to complain of, is that the bad-mannered predom- 
inate in some circles. 

"I shall have to come to Philadelphia to find a society 
of wellbred men," said a Xew York lady, visiting in that 
city not long since. " Our men do not have time to be 
wellbred." 

The truth is that every circle, at home or abroad, has 
its wellbred men and women, and its men and women of 
little breeding. In those circles where the wellbred pre- 
vail, the society is the best, and there is no reason why so- 
ciety in America should not be the equal of any society on 
the globe, as far as good breeding is concerned. 

Men are very much in society as women will them to 
be. Where women are not refined, men will not be chiv- 
alrous, nor even deferential. As long as women refuse to 
guide and to inspire, as long as they forget their higher 
nature, and think of pleasure instead of blessing, so long 
men will, as they have ever done, take the impulse of their 
lives from them, and do nothing chivalrous, nothing really 
self-sacrificing, nothing very noble and persistent for the 
blessing of the world. 

Aime Martin, in his eloquent work on the education of 



£.98 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

mothers, has expressed what all who desire and look for 
reform in society must feel, namely, that its regeneration 
must begin at the fountain-head ; that a purer atmosphere 
must surround the cradle, higher intelligence watch the 
dawn of reason and feeling, and train the early manifesta- 
tions of mental and moral character, before we can hope for 
a more complete and healthy development of the powers 
and energies of society. This writer says: 

"It is upon maternal love that the future destiny of the 
human race depends; do not then reject this power. Al- 
though it may appear feeble, its action is invincible, and it 
is destined to produce the greatest revolution which the 

world has yet seen Expecting nothing from the 

present generation, hoping nothing from our public edu- 
cation, we, too, must endeavor to form mothers, who will 
know how to train up their children." 

It has often been said that female life and character are 
sure indications of the domestic condition of a people. It 
is even charged nowadays that all women are flighty, ex- 
travagant, impractical busybodies; that they become bur- 
dens and sorrows in the married state. Though this is 
true to a somewhat alarming extent, yet the women who 
are the salt of the earth are more numerous than people 
think. It is unfair to judge the sex by the damsels who 
walk delicately along the fashionable streets, allowing oc- 
casional glimpses of their silk stockings, if it is fine weather, 
and shocking propriety by making dredging-machines of 
their skirts when the weather is bad ; whose dearest am- 
bition is to dress well, dance interminably, and flirt ad 
libitum. 

The women who bless the world, and make good thoughts 
to pervade the human race, who are the true and constant 
reformers, and a check upon the world's vicious proclivi- 
ties — these do not push themselves forward, but their arms, 



UNDERBRED WOMEN. 299 

like those of Moses, are sustaining the right day by day, 
and they never weary. 

There is, to-day as always, a disposition to describe the 
personal charms of women, rather than their gifts of mind 
and heart. Hence the absorbing ambition of mere society 
girls to starve their minds and diligently cultivate the 
person. The man who probably had the hardest contest 
with this feminine proclivity was St. Chrysostom, the great 
Christian preacher of the fourth century. Constantinople 
was at that period the most luxurious capital on the face 
of the earth. It was the fashion for all the women of so- 
ciety to paint their faces and dye their eyes with stibium, 
and Chrysostom's remonstrances are sometimes amusing. 
"Should she be so addicted," said he, "do not terrify her, 
do not threaten her; be persuasive and insinuating. Talk 
at her by reflecting on neighbors who do the same ; tell 
her she appears less lovely when thus tampered with. Ask 
her if she wishes to look young, and assure her this is the 
quickest way to look old. You may speak once and again, 
she is invincible, but never desist; be always amiable and 
bland, but still persevere. It is worth putting every en- 
gine into motion ; if you succeed, you will no more see 
lips stained with vermilion, a mouth like that of a bear 
reeking with gore, nor eyebrows blackened as from a sooty 
kettle, nor cheeks plastered like whited sepulchres." 

Jewels, curls, and cosmetics were as much the favorite 
articles of the Thracian belle as of her modern sister in the 
United States. " In one tip of her little ear," cried Chry- 
sostom, " she will suspend a ring that might have paid for 
the food of ten thousand poor Christians." 

Many of our American women have a lack of keenness 
of perception, in regard to the fitness of things, that the 
women of no other equally high state of civilization are so 
wanting in. In Europe you can tell underbred American 



300 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

women (and, unfortunately, more of this class travel than 
of any other), as far as you can see them on the boats and 
railways, by the quantity of jingling bracelets, flashing ear- 
rings, and loud neck-chains, lockets, and chatelaines they 
wear. Highbred women never flash their diamonds at 
table d'hote and railway buffets, nor wear them to church, 
nor make any display of jewelry when in public places. 

An American lady wearing in her ears diamond soli- 
taires that were heirlooms, for their protection, said to an 
English acquaintance, made in travelling : " I am sure that 
when you first met me you formed a different opinion of 
me from that which you have now." The English lady 
was embarrassed, but, being pressed, frankly acknowledged 
that the large diamonds in the American lady's ears had 
very much prejudiced her at first; "for you know," she 
added, " no English lady would think of wearing diamonds 
when travelling." On another occasion, an American family 
fell in with some distinguished Europeans, not English. 
After becoming very well acquainted, one of the Europeans 
said : " Hearing so many tongues spoken, we were very 
much puzzled to know what nation you belonged to, and 
finally concluded you must be English, although you have 
not the dowdy look they always have." "But why did 
you not take us for Americans?" asked one of the party. 
The European tried to evade the question, but nothing 
would do but a direct answer. " If I must tell you," was 
the reply, "it was because you were all so plainly dressed, 
and wore no jewelry." 

If women who dress flashily, or who indulge in displays 
of jewelry when travelling, or who dye their hair, or use 
paint and enamel on their faces, could know what strong 
prejudices they lay themselves open to encounter, and what 
effect it has upon sensible men and women, there would be 
less of it. 



SELF-RESPECT. 301 

One age succeeds another with increasing display, van- 
ity, wrong, and selfishness, say some. Xo, there are more 
good women in the world to-day than there were in the 
fourth or the eighteenth century — an ever increasing com- 
pany of those who live lives of self-annulment. With all 
the recklessness of fashionable life and its potent influences 
upon the young and susceptible, there is more capability 
for self-sacrifice among both men and women than ever 
before. Women are as nearly naturally good as they can 
be ; but men stand most frequently in the way of the cul- 
tivation of women's affections, and that cultivation, in this 
age, is too widely given to her passions and emotions. 

Every good woman exerts a refining and humanizing 
influence upon every man with whom she comes in contact, 
and her husband, sons, or brothers, can scarcely set her 
upon too high a pedestal in their estimation. 

The beauty and the worth of American women are indis- 
putable. Let their manners, cultivation, and good breed- 
ing equal their beauty, and no others can compare with 
them, says Mrs. Sherwood. If American mothers will do 
their duty in training their sons and their daughters, in- 
structing them as the young people in the best society 
abroad are instructed, we shall not long be wanting as a 
nation in any of the qualifications that go towards making 
the best society of every land what it ought to be. 

In the meantime, let our young people remember, that 
those who respect themselves are never wanting in respect 
to others, especially to their superiors in age. 



302 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 



CHAPTER X. 



HOME EDUCATION — COMPANY MANNERS — GENEALOGY — RE- 
QUISITES FOR SUCCESS — THE TEST OF NOBLENESS — SOCIE- 
TIES' PIN-PRICKS — NOBLE AND IGNOBLE PATIENCE — TRUE 
EDUCATION — LIFE'S SHIPWRECKS. 

" We have a genealogical tree, not traced by the flattery of s3 T co- 
phants, nor the uncertainy of heralds, but by the unerring Evan- 
gelist, whose inspiration enabled him to mount from branch to branch, 
a genealogy beginning with God, and ending with a poor Galilean 
carpenter. Here is a lesson and a rebuke for the pride of descent. 
The poorest carpenter, in the poorest village of England, can retrace 
his lineage through the same unbroken succession ; and the proudest 
peer can do no more, unless the latter, in his presumption, should be 
disposed to ignore his divine origin. But it would be of no use ; by 
whatever different branches, they arrive at the same root. The 
noble and the peasant, if both had the power of going back over their 
ancestry, would both meet at the 38th verse of the 3d chapter of 
Luke, ' Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which 
was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.' Here we all meet 
on equal terms. Disown them as we like in other degrees, here we 
are brought face to face with, and can no longer refuse to acknowledge 
our poor relations." 



' I know a duke ; well — let him pass — 
I may not call his grace an ass, 
Though if I did I'd do no wrong- 
Save to the asses and my song. 

" The duke is neither wise nor good ; 
He gambles, drinks, scorns womanhood, 
And at the age of twenty-four 
Is worn and battered as three-score. 



HOME EDUCATION. 303 

11 I know a waiter in Pall Mall 
"Who works, and waits, and reasons well ; 
Is gentle, courteous, and refined, 
And has a magnet in his mind. 

" What is it makes his graceless grace 
So like a jockey out of place ? 
What makes the waiter — tell who can — 
So very like a gentleman? 

" Perhaps their mothers ! God is great ! 
Perhaps 'tis accident — or fate ! 
Perhaps because — hold not my pen ! — 
We can breed horses, but not men !" 

What is it that makes one man a gentleman and another 
man a snob? Is it varying qualities of the mind, or of 
the heart, or of both the mind and heart combined ? Is 
one man born a snob (as another is born an imbecile), or 
does he become one by training and the force of example? 

If Locke is right in stating that, nine times out often, a 
man is what his education has made him, we are forced to 
the conclusion that it depends upon the home training 
whether a boy becomes a snob or a gentleman ; and yet, it 
must be acknowledged that some boys become snobs with 
much more facility than others, while it is equally true that 
other boys, with the same surroundings, take easier to the 
character of gentlemen. Nature, then, has much to do with 
the difference, but as nature never made a snob without aid, 
training and example must be held responsible for their 
share in the work. A gentleman is known only by his 
manners and habits, to those who have no means of know- 
ing his motives of action and the impulses of his heart, 
just as a snob is only known by his manners. As manners 
and habits are formed in the home circle, the deft fingers 
of the mother being best adapted to that bending of the 
twig by which the tree is inclined, parents cannot bestow 



301 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

too much attention upon the formation of the manners of 
their children. From the days of Epictetus, Socrates, 
Aristotle, down to the times of Chesterfield, Lord Bacon, 
Burke, Ruskin and Emerson, we find the most cultivated 
men and the finest wits of the day, as well as the philos- 
ophers of each period, discoursing upon manners, with a 
high estimate of their importance. And w T hy is this ? Why 
should men, whose minde are occupied with questions of 
vital importance to the interests of humanity, take up topics 
that are generally considered as belonging solely to the 
provinces of the mother, the governess, and the teacher? 

If we look around us and note how much the happiness 
of the kindhearted and the cultivated — their comfort and 
peace of mind even — depends upon the manners and the 
habits of those with whom they are thrown, the clue will be 
given to the vitality as w 7 ell as to the importance of the 
interest which the most highly cultivated minds of all ages 
have shown on the subject of manners. 

Aristotle tells us that manners are the lesser morals of 
life; and the greater part of the ethics might be used with 
effect in a treatise upon manners. He has exalted the pe- 
culiar behavior of the gentleman to his inferiors, as well as 
to his equals and superiors, into one of the cardinal virtues ; 
discoursing learnedly upon the proper carriage of good cit- 
izens in society. 

There is no thoughtful person, of refined nature and kind 
heart, who if asked the question, " Which individual do 
you find most essential to your enjoyment of society — the 
wit, the man of genius or talent, whose manners are bad, 
or the man wanting in wit, wanting in talent even, whose 
manners are faultless? but would answer, ' If I cannot 
have a society where both wit and good manners are found, 
I will dispense with the wit, for good manners I must 
have.'" 



HOME EDUCATION. 305 

If the rude man and the rude woman could see what the 
effect of their bad manners is upon all whose good opinion 
is worth having, rudeness would forever be done away 
with, for none could bear the odium that it heaps upon 
them if it were not invisible, like the atmosphere that sur- 
rounds them, which yet weighs them down, insensibly to 
themselves. Having admitted that birth and nurture have 
their part to play in the forming of the manners, we come 
to nature's part, a kind heart. Where the mother has good 
material to work upon, her task is not a difficult one in form- 
ing the manners and the habits of her children ; but even 
then, it is line upon line, precept upon precept, and never- 
failing good example, which shapes the character of those 
confided to her care. Should it be that the father does not 
hold the same ideas that the mother does in reference to 
the importance of early training, then the labor of the 
mother must be proportionably increased. "Oh, what a 
story-teller I would have been, if it had not been for you! " 
said a youth to his mother once. " Why, my child, what do 
you mean?" asked the mother. "I mean that my father 
made so many jokes that I did not know what was true 
and what was not true; and that he frightened me so much 
by his manner, when he found fault with me, that I couldn't 
have known whether I was telling falsehoods or truth, if 
it had not been for you, who would not let me tell stories 
in fun or even exaggerate, and who always talked as calmly 
to me when you were censuring me as you did when you 
were praising me." 

Of such are the mothers whose hearts are never stung 
through and through by the ingratitude of their children, 
and who reap as they have sown, if Scripture promises are 
not in vain. 

" How lovely your mother is !" said a lady at a watering- 
place to a young school-girl. "Oh, do you think so? 

20 



306 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Well, then, I wish you could see her at home. These are 
company manners, just put on for the occasion." 

Every one knows both men and women who indulge in 
" company manners," who can be overflowing with civility 
in society, and overflowing with rudeness in the family 
circle. Such parents transmit their coarseness, and their 
children have no manners at all, not even in company. 
Wellbred men and women have the same manners at 
home that they have in society. They would no sooner be 
guilty of a rudeness to an inmate of the family circle than 
to a society leader. Illbred men and women carry the 
same manners into the domestic circle that they exhibit 
outside of it, and what a pandemonium they can make 
around the hearthstone ! " Why is it that the poor mother- 
in-law is always blamed by the world if her son's wife 
complains of her?" asks some newspaper, adding pithily, 
" There are some daughters who cannot get along with 
their own mothers, and marrying, bring reproach upon the 
mothers of their husbands, and discord into homes that 
were always peaceful ones until they entered them." 

It is the manners that does all this. A daughter who 
has been trained to show the same consideration for mem- 
bers of the family as for persons outside of it, whose good 
opinions she desires to win, will not bring the apple of dis- 
cord into the home which her husband takes her to, even 
though there be a mother-in-law in it. Such causes as she 
may fancy she has for complaint, she will shut up in her 
own heart, and her love for her husband will increase in 
proportion to the love and respect which he shows his 
mother ; knowing well that good sons make good husbands, 
and that where true affection exists in a home circle, it is 
the work of a demon to seek to disturb it. 

Yet, sooner or later, some such experience must come to 
all. Shadows are deep in proportion to the brilliancy of 



HOME EDUCATION. 307 

the sunshine, and the One who leads us likes to try our 
strength sometimes, and show us that the reeds on which 
we are leaning are weaker even than ourselves, if he with- 
draws his arm, failing us just when we need them most; 
and then, in proportion to the warmth and the brilliancy 
in which we have been basking, will be the coldness of 
the shadows that come over our lives. Hard as it is for 
the young to have their illusions fail them, to see the 
rosy morning of their youth overcast, they can afford to 
wait for the advance of the hours that will dispel the 
clouds; but when age feels the withdrawal of some light 
that it had trusted in to cheer its declining day, it can 
never again hope to welcome it, because, long ere the 
shadow shall be withdrawn from the chilled and weary 
frame, the sun will have gone down forever into the ocean 
of eternity. 

Hand to hand combats inspire strength that sustains the 
combatants as long as life lasts, or until one is withdrawn 
because of unequal strength. The blow that staggers and 
prostrates, falling with the suddenness of the lightning 
that flashes out of the clouds, for which no preparation has 
been made, is the one that demoralizes its victims. I believe, 
says Spurgeon, in sanctified afflictions, but not in sanctify- 
ing afflictions. The first tendency of all affliction is to 
make the heart in its natural state rebellious ; and more 
especially is it so when some agency other than death deals 
the blow — some agency in which for the time we cannot 
see God working his wonders to perform. 

But all agencies, all instruments, are used in the battle 
of life; the marksman behind the hedge, as well as the 
battery upon the eminence ; the hidden reef, as well as the 
adverse gale which we bend our sails to meet ; the clown's 
bludgeon of attack even can be made to do its work as 
neatly as the tempered blade of steel ; but to cleave through 



308 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

helmet and mail, down to the very heart's core, there is 
only one hand that is strong enough to deal such a deadly 
blow — the hand of one whom you love. 

Do parents wish their children to be loving, appreciative 
and grateful, as the years roll on ? Do they wish their 
daughters to be happy and respected ; their tastes refined, 
their manners simple, charming, graceful, their friendships 
elevating ? Do they wish their sons to be nature's noble- 
men, chivalrous to women, deferential to age, honorable in 
comradeship? Then they must themselves be what they 
wish their children to be, remembering the golden maxim, 
" Good manners, like charity, must begin at home." On 
utilitarian, as well as on selfish principles, we should in- 
struct our children as to the immense social force, yes, even 
as to the source of political power that lies in good man- 
ners. 

"Blank was very anxious for the post of minister at 

, and his friends moved heaven and earth to get it for 

him ; but I remembered a rudeness that his wife had shown 
to mine, and I swore I would defeat his aim, and by Jove! 
I've done it!" said a politician, not long since. There is 
no one who can afford to be rude. In the hour that he 
least expects it, his rudeness confronts him with the bitter 
fruit of its rank growth. Whether w r e wish our children 
to be successful in what they undertake, or to adorn society, 
or to make happy homes, this is the surest way to accom- 
plish our desires, by training them to be civil to every one; 
and we must never lose sight of the fact that the only way 
in which it is possible to acquire and retain the habits of 
good society is to live in no other. As disease is far more 
contagious than health, so are we much more apt to catch 
the vices of others than their virtues. Therefore, judicious 
parents will watch the associates of their children, asking 
" What are their habits and manners ?" instead of " Who 



HOME EDUCATION. 309 

are they ?" and, " Who were their grandparents ?" The 
child that hears these latter questions asked, cannot help 
becoming snobbish, at least in this one point, although free 
from it in others. It is only those persons and families 
whose position is not a secure one that are afraid to be seen 
with people outside of their own social circle. Those who 
have a position of their own that has been made for them 
by their ancestors, and secured by their own worth, are 
never so much interested in the antecedents of others as 
those are who have no antecedents of their own. It is the 
hard fate of this latter class to have to ask about the fami- 
lies of others, instead of in reference to individual worth, 
for to do as other people do is the ambition of snobs. 
Those parents who are able to select their own associates 
and those of their children, not so much in reference to an- 
cestry as to character and manners, will prevent the evil 
effect of bad examples, which so often counteracts the in- 
fluence of a mother's training. Let it not be lost sight of, 
however, that the probability of finding good manners is 
always in favor of those parents whose children have good 
manners, and in families where culture has been trans- 
mitted ; for where there is proper pride of ancestry, there 
will be found every motive leading to the endeavor to be 
worthy of those who have been before them, and to avoid 
whatever may reflect reproach upon their name. Just as 
important is it to remember that those who have had no 
distinguished ancestors, whose families are, comparatively 
speaking, almost unknown, may have been ennobling them- 
selves by pureness of moral habit, and that culture of the 
mind and heart which antecedents alone cannot confer. 
Therefore, the habits and the manners of families are of 
more importance than their name or blood. And here let 
it be said that those families that are called "new," because 
they have newly moved into a city, are often of nobler and 



310 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

longer lineage than those which are called " old," because 
of their longer residence there. In a republic, more than 
in a monarchy, must a tree be known by its fruits, because 
a republic has no Burke to turn to for information, as to 
the origin of the tree, and the quality of its roots. 

A lady in society once asked a young Quaker who bore 
a name known in English history, whether he was a de- 
scendant of the one who had made the name famous. 
" Not that I am aware of," was the cautious answer. " But 
surely you can tell. What coat of arms does your family 
bear ?" " No especial coat belongs to the family in com- 
mon ; and I have good reason to think that some of my 
ancestors must have made their own coats if they had any," 
answered the facetious Quaker. " But what is your crest? 
You surely must have a crest with your name?" continued 
the interrogator. " We use no crest," was the reply. At this 
juncture the grandmother, who was present, interrupted: 
" Why does thee feign ignorance when thee well knows 
that the crest is a naked arm with a blade in it, and that 
we do not use it because we are Friends?" " Which only 
proves, grandmother, that our ancestors were butchers, and 
that Friends are not willing to own such plebeian origin," 
was the answer of the Quaker youth, whose horror of all 
snobbery was too well-grounded in him to permit him to 
admit any claims that savored of pretence. Everywhere a 
total absence of pretence is the first requisite for good man- 
ners. Pretence is snobbishness, and snobbishness is vul- 
garity. Where there is no pretence, labor is not looked 
upon as degrading. " How little did my great-grandfather 
think that any of his descendants would have to work for 
a living," said a Virginia Ldy to a Massachusetts kinswo- 
man. u Your great-grandfather was too sensible a man not 
to know that many of his descendants would have to work 
for a living, as well as that many of his forefathers had also 



GENEALOGY. 811 

worked for a living," was the answer. " Why, he was 
the lineal descendant of a baronet, you know," the naive 
Virginian replied. " Yes, and the baronet was the son of 
a manufacturer, and the manufacturer the son of an apothe- 
cary, and the apothecary himself was once an appren- 
tice," added the New England woman. " Dear me ! how 
did you ever know so much about the family ? I wish 
you had not told me, for I supposed our ancestors were all 
baronets before they came to this country." " And the 
apprentice was the grandson of a baronet, and the baronet 
himself traced descent from a kino* of England " continued 
the New Englander. 

" Oh, that makes all the difference in the world," replied 
the Virginian ; " I knew we came from good stock." 

" Yes, you may well say that ; and the best of the line 
was the apothecary's apprentice, who raised himself from 
that situation to be Lord Mayor of London." 

Here we find the Virginian, true to the type of a Vir- 
ginia lady ; the Massachusetts woman, equally true to the 
best type of a New England gentlewoman. 

It is to the honor of a distinguished Philadelphia family, 
tracing descent from a respectable AVestmorelandshire 
house in England, that the ancestor in their line of descent, 
to whom they refer with the most pride, was apprenticed 
to a hatter at the early age of fourteen, rising from this 
station to that of mayor. His history, as given in the 
"Pennsylvania Magazine* of History and Biography," 
proves him to have been one of nature's noblemen, pos- 
sessed of those abilities which insure a rise in life. Dur- 
ing the mayoralty of this remarkable man, he frequently 
expressed his great respect for those who were masters 
of a trade. It was the custom then among Quakers, 

* See History of the Wharton Family, commencing in Vol. I, No. 3. 



312 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

or Friends, to give each of their sons a trade; and the 
time was when even kings were compelled to master one. 
Now, men talk about the indignity of doing work that is 
beneath them, but the only indignity that they should care 
for is the indignity of doing nothing. 

Our Lord in early life was doubtless a poor artisan ; 
every Jew learned a trade then, Paul made tents, and 
Peter was a fisherman. A Philadelphia f millionaire sev- 
eral times over" is the son of a gentleman, who, with his 
brothers, were all apprenticed to their separate trades by a 
wealthy grandfather after their father's death. This aged 
Quaker, who belonged to one of the oldest families in the 
United States (as well as to one of the oldest families of 
the gentry in England), allowed his daughter-in-law* to 
maintain herself after the death of her husband — the father 
of these young apprentices. It was not a thing of chance 
that his great-grandson built up a fortune in one gene- 
ration with his small capital of about twenty thousand 
dollars, any more than it was chance that aided Girard, 
Pidgway, Astor, Stewart and others to make their large 
fortunes. Industry, integrity, economy, and caution are 
good stepping-stones to success. 

When a man has risen from a humble to a lofty position 
in life, carved his name deep into the core of the world, 
or fallen upon some sudden discovery, with which his 
name is identified in all time coming, his rise, his work, 
his discovery is very often attributed to " accident." The 
fall of the apple is quoted as the accident by which Newton 

* This worthy woman, whose memory is revered by her descend- 
ants, was the housekeeper of her valued friend the late Jacob Ridg- 
way, and the companion of his daughters. She was related to the 
families of Jay, the signer, Governor Lloyd of Pennsylvania, Gov- 
ernor Bloomfield and Governor Haynes of New Jersey. She proved 
herself worthy of " the good stock " from which she sprang. 



GENEALOGY. 313 

discovered the law of gravitation ; and the convulsed frog's 
legs, first observed by Galvani, are in like manner quoted 
as an instance of accidental discovery. But nothing can 
be more unfounded. Newton had been studying in retire- 
ment the laws of matter and motion, and his head was 
full and his brain beating with the toil of thinking on the 
subject, when the apple fell. The train was already laid 
long before, and the significance of the apple's fall was 
suddenly apprehended as only genius could apprehend it. 
So with Galvani, Jenner, Franklin, Watt, Davy, and all 
other philosophers : they worked their way by steps, feeling 
for the right road, like the blind man, and always trying 
carefully the firmness of the new ground before venturing 
upon it. 

Genius of the very highest kind never trusts to accident, 
but is indefatigable in labor. Buffon has said of genius, 
"It is patience." Some one else has called it "intense 
purpose ;" and another, ". hard work." Genius, however, 
turns to account all accidents ; call them rather by their 
right names, opportunities. The history of successful men 
proves that it was the habit of cultivating opportunities — 
of taking advantage of opportunities — which helped them 
to success ; which, indeed, secured success. 

If opportunities do not fortuitously occur, then the man 
of earnest purpose proceeds to make them for himself. He 
looks for help everywhere. There are many roads into 
Nature ; and if determined to find a path, a man need not 
have to wait long. He turns all accidents to account, and 
makes them promote his purpose. Dr. Lee, professor of 
Hebrew, at Cambridge, pursued his trade of a bricklayer 
up to twenty-eight years of age, and was first led to study 
Hebrew by becoming interested in a Hebrew Bible, which 
fell in his way when engaged in the v e pairs of a synagogue; 
but before this time he had been engaged in the culture 



314 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

of his intellect, devoting all his spare hours and much of 
his nights to the study of Latin and Greek. 

So in the acquisition of a fortune, it is not accident that 
helps a man on in the world, but purpose and persistent in- 
dustry. These make a man sharp to discern opportunities, 
and to use them. To the sluggish and the purposeless, 
the happiest opportunities avail nothing ; they pass them 
by with indifference, seeing no meaning in them. Success- 
ful men achieve and perform, because they have the pur- 
pose to do so. They "scorn delights, and live laborious 
days." They labor with hand and head. Difficulties serve 
only to draw forth the energies of their character. 

Doubtless Professor Faraday had difficulties to encounter 
in working his way up from the carpenter's bench to the 
highest rank as a scientific chemist and philosopher. 

" What ! " said John Hunter, the first of English sur- 
geons, originally a carpenter; "is there a man whom diffi- 
culties dishearten, who bends to the storm? He will do 
little. Is there one who will conquer? That kind of 
man never fails." 

Possibly a man may get another to do his work for him, 
but not to do his thinking for him. What if a man fails 
in one effort? Let him try again ! Let him try hard, 
try often, and he cannot fail ultimately to succeed. It is 
the man who prefers idleness to work, pleasure to industry, 
that meets with no success ; the man of so little worth, so 
little energy, that he would depend upon the fruits of the 
hard toil of others, who remains in a dependent situation. 
"There is something in resolution," says Walker, "which 
has an influence beyond itself. It marches on like a 
mighty lord among its slaves. When bent on good, it is 
almost the noblest attribute of man ; when on evil, the 
most dangerous." It is only by habitual resolution that 
men succeed to any great extent ; mere impulses are not 



THE TEST OF NOBLENESS. 315 

sufficient. The idle, the self-indulgent, the lover of pleas- 
ure, need never hope for success, let their aims be what 
they may. 

In the United States, where wealth is held by such pre- 
carious tenure that those who are living in luxury one 
year may be seeking employment the next, it is the duty 
of every mother to see that her daughters, as well as her 
sons, are fitted for self-support. The daughters' chances 
for marriage will not be diminished by it, and their 
chances for happiness will be increased. If they are 
blessed with homes of their own, they will be all the 
better fitted for reigning in that kingdom which is their 
heritage. And if destiny denies them the happy life-work 
of happy wives and mothers, they will at least have 
more resources within themselves for happiness than those 
women possess who have not made systematic preparation 
for a life of usefulness. Fewer branches of study, and 
more thoroughness in each branch, should at least be 
insisted upon ; and where no inclination is felt to continue 
a course of study after school-life is ended, a course of 
reading should be taken up and systematically followed. 

In an age like the present, when so much is heard of 
professional education for women, university examinations, 
female suffrage, and the like, it is more than ever neces- 
sary for wives and mothers to fill their domestic vocations 
in a way that will show their capacity to serve in other 
ways, should it be necessary. Faithfulness in the dis- 
charge of the duties of private life gives testimony to 
capacity for faithfulness in any service. 

Those who are now systematically advocating the 
higher education of women, are constantly met with the 
question, " AVhat do women want with a higher educa- 
tion?" Mrs. William Grey, of London, who has written 
much upon this subject, answers this question in the fol- 



316 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

lowing manner : They want it because the duties allotted 
to women by the Creator's order, require the highest men- 
tal and moral discipline, and a low-minded mother injures 
society at its very root in the family. They want it 
because, by causes beyond their control, more and more 
women are driven to their own exertions for support, and 
can have no chance in the labor market if to their natural 
disadvantages be added the artificial one of want of train- 
ing. 

They w T ant it because we live in revolutionary times, 
when the old beliefs, the old traditions which hedged 
round the lives of women, at least in a guarded path, are 
called in question in every newspaper, in every novel, and 
women can no longer walk, like children, in leading 
strings, but in this trial of all things must be taught to 
discern and hold fast that which is good. 

They want it because in the fierce competition of modern 
society the only class left in the country possessing leisure 
is that of women supported in easy circumstances by hus- 
band or father, and it is to this class we must look for the 
maintenance of cultivated and refined tastes, for that value 
and pursuit of knowledge and of art for their own sakes 
which can alone save society from degenerating into a 
huge machine for making money, and gratifying the love 
of sensual luxury. 

Finally, they want it because they, like men, were cre- 
ated in the image of God; because to develop, and culti- 
vate, and perfect that divine element within them is their 
right and their duty. 

To these reasons, so ably given, another might be added: 
Women want a higher education that they may be fitted 
to become the " helpmeets/' the companions, and the con- 
fidential advisers of their husbands, and made capable of 
training the immortal souls, intrusted to their care, for 



THE TEST OF NOBLENESS. 317 

lives of usefulness and happiness here and hereafter. No 
man, who does not know by experience, is able to estimate 
how much is gained from the daily companionship of a 
woman who is his equal in range of thought, who, after 
looking well to the ways of her household, is capable of 
entering into his plans, making wise suggestions, sharing 
his thoughts and his cares, and " directiug his mind not 
less than engaging; his heart." 

A writer upon "Marriage in France" says: Never was 
the need that women should be thoroughly instructed so 
urgent as it is now. The intellectual advance of man, 
which has been so rapid since the last century, calls for a 
corresponding advance in woman. 

This writer advocates the admission of women to the 
professions hitherto monopolized by men, upon the ground 
that the mere fact of the professions being open to them, 
will raise the level of their general education. He goes so 
far as to assert that unless our women are educated to 
become the companions of the men they marry, we shall 
never be entirely safe from the danger which has proved 
so fatal to France; that sinking gradually below the intel- 
lectual level of men, they will in time imitate those 
"charming yet terrible little carnivora" of which Dumas 
speaks, for whom men sacrifice their fortunes, their 
honor, and their lives. This writer shows us that the 
evils which so often arise in wedded life are mainly attrib- 
utable to the want of that thorough education which fits 
women to be the companions of men intellectually. 

Turning from the nation of which he writes, he says : 
"We shall not, therefore, inveigh against the French ; let 
us rather look to ourselves, and learn a lesson from their 
errors. The cardinal error, the prime mover of all the 
evils we have pointed out, lies in the education of women. 
We are not speaking merely of the work of governesses 



318 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

and school teachers; we are speaking of the pressure exer- 
cised by society to fix women in one sphere of activity to 
the exclusion of all others, the popular notion being that 
women are intended by nature to be wives and mothers, 
nothing else; and as they must be wives before they are 
mothers, the whole effort of their training goes to make 
them pleasing, in order that men may be attracted to marry 
them. Furthermore, as they are to marry very early, it 
follows naturally that they must please by those attractions 
which are most powerful in youth, namely sexual attrac- 
tions. Hence their attention is concentrated upon their 
person, their dress, and all the provocations of coquettish- 
ness. Their mind remains void: they advance in years 
without acquiring those qualities of slower growth which 
alone can adorn maturity; and when they have captured a 
husband, they find themselves utterly unfit for companion- 
ship with him. 

The consequence of this state of things finds illustration 
everywhere. 

Alexandre Dumas says of society in France, in his pref- 
ace to "L'Aini des Femmes : " Society is threatened with 
destruction ; no household is secure from the dissolute 

invaders; they seat themselves at every board 

No matter, let them come ; they can destroy nothing but 
what is worthy of destruction ; they will rid us of the 
ruins and the rubbish which would hinder a new society 
from arising out of the old. Their mission is to destroy in 
the society of our day the element which has proved fatal 
to all societies gone by, the most pernicious element exist- 
ing — the idle-handed ! When they shall have eaten up 
inheritance, property will renew itself by labor ; when they 
shall have decomposed our families, better families will 
constitute themselves. They will furnish, together with 
their victims, the manure needed by the social soil for its 



THE TEST OF NOBLENESS. 319 

mysterious germs. When there is nothing more to prey 
upon, they will die of inanition, and woman will reappear 
under a new form. 

This is the state of society against which we are warned, 
and which it is predicted will engulf us in turn, unless 
we educate our women to a higher standard, and rid our- 
selves of our idle men. Before the reign of Edward III, 
the word used for gentleman was iddleman, the meaning 
of which was freeborn. In the reign of Henry VI, a 
gentleman was known as an idleman, the word having the 
same meaning. It is to be feared that too many in our 
day confuse the word with idle man in their definition of 
a gentleman ; but, as Euskin says, its primal, literal, and 
perpetual meaning is "a man of pure race," wellbred, in 
the sense that a horse or a dog is wellbred. The term has 
nothing whatever to do with the false meaning given to it 
now — that of a man living in idleness on other people's 
labor. When idleman in this sense is no longer associated 
with gentlemen, may we not hope that the false idea that 
an idle man is a gentleman will disappear so generally, 
that not one individual can be found to make the boast 
which some American men have been said to make, namely, 
that they have never earned a dollar in their lives ? The 
woman who works, as well as the man who works, should 
rise in the social as well as in the moral scale ; and they 
will so rise in the society of all true gentlemen and all true 
gentlewomen. Ruskin attributes the want of a thorough 
understanding of the real meaning of this word gentleman 
to the fact that, while there are many who assert that the 
more a man works the more of one he is likely to become, 
they hold, at the same time, to the error that race is of no 
consequence ; the truth being that race is precisely of as 
much consequence in man as it is in any other animal. 
He tells us that no nation can prosper till both these errors 



320 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

are got rid of; that gentlemen have to learn that it is no 
part of their duty or privilege to live on other people's 
toil ; that there is no* degradation in the hardest manual 
or the humblest servile labor, when it is honest; and that 
those who deny the existence of transmitted qualities have 
to learn that every vicious habit and chronic disease com- 
municates itself by descent ; and that by purity of birth 
the entire system of the human body and soul may be grad- 
ually elevated, or by recklessness of birth degraded ; until 
there shall be as much difference between the wellbred 
and illbred human creature (whatever pains be taken with 
their education) as between a wolf-hound and the vilest 
mongrel cur. The knowledge of this great fact, he adds, 
ought to regulate the education of our youth, and the en- 
tire conduct of the nation. The same writer tells us^gen- 
tlemanliness, however, in ordinary parlance, must be taken 
to signify those qualities which are usually the evidence of 
high-breeding, and which, so far as they can be acquired, 
it should be every man's effort to acquire ; or, if he has 
them by nature, to preserve and exalt. Proceeding to note 
some of the characteristics of a gentleman, he names sensi- 
tiveness, sympathy, self-command to a certain extent, per- 
fect ease, openness, and that form of truthfulness which is 
opposed to cunning, yet not always opposed to falsity abso- 
lute. A cunning person seeks for opportunities to deceive ; 
a gentleman shuns them. A cunning person triumphs in 
deceiving ; a gentleman is humiliated by the success, or, at 
least, by so much of the success as is dependent merely on 
the falsehood, and not on his intellectual superiority. The 
absolute disdain of all forms of falsehood belongs rather to 
Christian chivalry than to mere high-breeding. Though 

* A thoroughbred is always a thoroughbred, even though he comes 
down to drawing a cart. 



THE TEST OE NOBLENESS. 321 

Tightness of moral conduct is ultimately the great purifier 
of race, the sign of nobleness is not in this rightness of 
moral conduct, but in sensitiveness. 

How many, high in rank, would fail to bear the test, 
if sensitiveness were made the test. A story is told of a 
haughty Austrian princess who stood by her class with 
great persistency, and who was as much feared as she was 
admired. When Liszt was a young man, and at the height 
of his success and popularity, he visited Vienna, and was 
received at one of her receptions. The princess asked him 
how long since he had visited Vienna, how long he in- 
tended staying — they were surrounded by a fashionable 
crowd — and then, she added, with a mixture of haughty 
condescension and elegant insolence, as if dismissing him, 
"J'espere, Monsieur, que vous fassiez bien vos affaires" 
(I hope, sir, you may succeed in your business.) 

" Madame laprincesse" replied Liszt, in his cool, lofty 
manner, which arrested the attention of every one, " Je ne 
me mele qiCavec art. Je n'ai point d'affaires. Affaires! 
Tout eela appartient aux banquiers et diplomates." (O prin- 
cess, I interest myself only in art. Business ! I have no 
business. All that sort of thing; belongs to bankers and 
diplomates.) 

As the princess's husband was the diplomate par excel- 
lence of the day, this reply was a hard retort, though, under 
the circumstances, a warranted one. Her own want of 
delicacy drew it down upon her, and all felt that she had 
merited the clever rejoinder. The story was told by a 
lady who was present. She said the scene was admirable. 
For one instant the two measured swords, figuratively, 
in the silence of the salon, then both bowed and parted. 

This was one of those cases in which duty did not require 
submission. There are impertinences and evils that must 
be put down at the moment, or the contamination of un- 

21 



322 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

rebuked ba~ example will spread like contagion. Rev. 
S. A. Brooke says : " None of the Old Testament saints 
were very patient with evil. It is true, Christ says, ' If 
a man smite thee on one cheek turn to him the other/ 
but he never meant that for a universal rule; and if, in 
doing it, we were to promote injustice, and the oppression 
of others by the encouragement our patience gives to the 
oppressor, Christ, who did not turn his cheek in silence to 
the Pharisees, would be the first to say, ' That was not my 
meaning/ When the injury or the insult done to us is only 
personal, that is, begins and ends with us, it is our duty to 
take the spirit of the words of Christ to our heart, and to 
see what patience with the injurer will do. But when the 
injury has an evil influence on other lives, it is not our 
duty to submit, but to resist. Patience then would be 
ignoble." 

There are many mere pin -pricks received in society that 
should not be dignified with any notice whatever, too 
small even to come under the class of injuries to which it 
is our duty to submit with patience; but it is not every 
one who can bear such pin-pricks as coolly as did a cer- 
tain young man who, after a long absence from his native 
town (at college and abroad), came back to receive a studi- 
ously prepared insult from members of a committee arrang- 
ing for a festivity. The wires were pulled by an outsider^ 
and the puppet used did his work so well that the young 
man was first asked to subscribe on account of want of 
funds, and then excluded from the list of subscribers. He 
was never heard to allude to it but once, and then after 
this fashion : "lam reminded of an illustration in 'Punch.' 
Two forlorn, rum-soaked, and seedy loafers are on one side 
of the street, a gentleman on the other. ' Bill, who is that 
swell over there ?' asked one of the rowdies. ' I don't 
know,' replied Bill, ' but he's a stranger, and let's heave a 



323 

brick at him.' Now, I am in the situation of the stranger. 
I have been away nine years, the men on this committee 
do not know me, and consequently can have no grudge 
against me to satisfy, but this is the brick which they 
have got ready to welcome me home with." 

We do not make sufficient allowance for temperaments. 
"What is easy for one to bear is difficult for another. 
Temperaments are born with the individual, while charac- 
ter depends upon early training and the daily effort of 
each individual. It is as easy for some to try to over- 
come evil with good, as it is for others to lie in wait for 
years to indulge the demon-born instinct of revenge. 
Some natures are like the tough caoutchouc, the prickly 
thorn, the stinging nettle; others like the sensitive mimosa, 
shrinking from all contact with the rough and rude. The 
latter never flourish, nor look, and do their best except in 
beds of their own species. They are never understood 
even, excepting by their own kind. This is why we so 
often find such differing views concerning one person pre- 
vailing in a community. " Haughty, dictatorial, self- 
seeking, suspicious,' 7 some say ; " genial, ardent, trusting, 
unselfish," others say. 

" You are too sensitive ; you care too much what people 
think ; you go out of your way to make explanations ; you 
treat people as though they all had feelings as fine as your 
own," said a gentleman to a lady. 

" It used to trouble me very much when people told me 
that I cared too much for the good opinion of others," she 
replied, " but I have learned that no human being can 
care too much for the good opinion of his kind so long as 
he cares more about being worthy of it. I used to try to 
deaden and benumb my sensitiveness, until I learned that 
we cannot change our original nature without spoiling it 
and committing spiritual suicide." 



324 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Every power in politics, in the Church even, hears of 
acts attributed to him which it seems incredible could be 
believed by any who know him. The slanderer often has 
it all his own way ; for it is but seldom that any opportu- 
nity is afforded for contradiction. Formerly the idea was 
that such slanders must be borne patiently. We have 
learned better in these days. The loathsome little viper 
that looks of too little consequence to crush in your garden 
walk, and that you would not willingly defile your own 
heel in crushing, creeps away to hatch brood after brood 
of its own kind, to spread their slime in after days over 
the fairest flowers that blossom on your turf. 

In the same way society has its vipers, its hissing adders, 
its venom-spitting reptiles, fostered in the hot-bed of a 
slander-loving, gossip-spreading home circle. And from 
them spring up, daily and hourly, some evils that must be 
borne patiently, for a time at least — since they are too 
petty to do battle, with — as well as those larger evils 
which must be crushed out on the moment with an iron 
heel, if they are ever to be crushed at all. 

No wife, no mother, no woman can be too sensitive con- 
cerning any charge against the integrity of her woman- 
hood. Such charges are the vipers that must be crushed 
on the instant. Of quite a different nature are those 
which she can wait her opportunity to deal with. 

" I heard of that excellent reproof that you administered 
to a young girl who came to your ball without answering 
your invitation," said a lady to a relative. 

" What do you mean ? Do you think me capable of 
reproving a guest for any remissness ?■' 

" Why, I did not look at it in that light at all. I heard 
you told her that you did not expect to see her, as she had 
not answered your note of invitation, and I must confess I 
thought she deserved the reproof." 



325 

" However much she may have deserved it, she most 
certainly did not receive it," was the reply. 

Of such a nature are the pin-pricks that only pierce the 
skin. It is left for the Judases of society to cut to the 
heart sometimes ; they who kiss while betraying, who 
mingle the drop of gall so subtly with the drop of honey, 
that we know not from whence the bitterness proceeds ; 
they who, perhaps under the guise of affectionate censure 
of our conduct to others, awaken suspicions which were 
never harbored before, poisoning the sweet wells of living 
waters which are the sources of solace and refreshment in 
the green oases of Life's Shaara. 

Loyal souls, noble minds, are not able to take in the full 
extent of such treachery until the hour comes when the 
honey is exhausted, and only gall remains. Women whose 
natures are antagonistic to worldliness are seldom under- 
stood by the worldly. Indeed there are but few acts of 
any woman, worldly or unworldly, which do not bear an 
interpretation according to the narrowness or the breadth, 
the baseness or the nobleness of the mind interpreting 
them. An oblique moral vision, an envious disposition, 
and even a hasty judgment, may change the color of an 
act as much as a bit of smoked or stained glass changes a 
landscape. 

The exercise of patience under showers of degrading 
suspicions, unmerited accusations, and invented calumnies, 
though sometimes a noble patience, is at other times, as 
we have seen, an ignoble patience. One may say, while 
accepting the situation, and enduring all that is unavoid- 
able, "My life is so rich with blessings, ought I not, with 
the Persian king, to welcome these little grievances and 
annoyances as perhaps averting some greater misfortune?" 
Those who have drawn prizes in the lottery of life should 
not suffer their hearts to harden toward the drawers of 



326 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

blanks ; nor yet should they forget that impatience is 
sometimes as noble as patience. 

Every one who is able to say, " I have had good at the 
hands of God, shall I not now bear evil quietly ? — I will 
take my pain as well as my pleasure as coming from his 
loving hands," will find that the spirit becomes calm, under 
such trials, and that the calm of the spirit spreads to the 
intellect. We wait, not inactively, but on the watch ; we 
believe God has sent all discipline, even petty trials, for our 
good and our growth; and waiting thus, bearing the in- 
evitable, a time arrives when noble impatience comes to do 
its work. We have no notion now of bearing what we can 
avoid, of folding our hands in ignoble patience upon the 
tomb of our higher selves. We accept the trial, whatever 
it may be, with the patience which produces labor, and 
the end is that we are not overcome of evil, but that our 
lives and our works will give the lie to traducers and de- 
famers. 

Ignoble patience grows out of noble impatience. The 
latter begins by crying out against fate, destiny, Providence 
itself, spending our anger upon our dependents, making home 
miserable, and the atmosphere of our own lives stormy and 
turbid, turning the good which God intended the diffi- 
culty to do us into evil, and, having made it evil, we are 
in the end overcome by the evil. Then comes ignoble 
patience bidding us to do nothing, since it is the tyranny 
of fate, from which there is no escaping ; and with what 
result if we follow its slothful counsels? The death of the 
soul, and the stupor of its faculties for this present life at 
least. 

What we call fate is simply the universe telling us we 
have taken a wrong path, and that we had better make haste 
and find another. Everything goes down before a healthy 
human will which believes in God ; and does not worry 



TRUE EDUCATION. 327 

about the morrow while working in the present. The 
world soon comes round to our side if we let it know that 
it is not our master. All we have to do is to do our work 
steadily among men, and for others as well as for ourselves, 
believing that it is God who does the work in us, and is 
helping the world through us. Our children should be 
trained as those who will have to go on with this work, 
for the sake of the truths and thoughts on whose support 
the cause of mankind rests; to run directly counter, if nec- 
essary, to the opinions of society, and so to develop all 
affections that they may last, still beautiful, still true, in 
a glory which will outlast time. Our training here is but 
the beginning of an eternal progress. We need not be dis- 
turbed or hurried in our work on ourselves or on others. 
We can afford to learn our lessons with the slowness which 
will make them sweet and strong. We can afford to be 
patient with the evil and the uncharitableness that we 
see around us, if we exercise that noble patience which 
leads to the impatience that overcomes all evil in the end. 
By so developing our own natures into strength, by having 
experienced difficulties and overcome them, we are fitted to 
aid others in the work of self-improvement. In women's 
hands, as mothers and teachers, lies the work of moulding 
and forming the minds and the character of the next gen- 
eration. According to the narrowness or the broadness of 
their interpretation of the word a education" will that 
generation bear testimony to the thoroughness of their 
work. Let us, then, keep in memory the truth, that both 
manners and morals are so intimately connected with edu- 
cation that we are responsible for the growth or for the 
disappearance of snobbishness in those confided to our 
care, as we are for their right instruction in the duties of 
life — duties which leave no men, no women, any hours of 
idleness to corrode their characters, or breed plague-spots 



328 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

on their lives. When idleness disappears from communi- 
ties, snobbishness goes with it ; and when snobbishness has 
gone, there will be less of bad manners left to contend with 
or to suppress. 

An education whose aims and extent are wider than at 
present is what is needed to meet the requirements of our 
daughters' lives. An education which will encourage an 
habitual reference of life to higher motives than personal 
ones, higher even than those which belong to the family; 
which will give in the young vivid interest in social 
questions, — such a knowledge of government, and of the 
history of other countries, as to enable them in after-life 
to enter into those movements which are likely to bear 
on the progress of mankind. An education which will 
help them to live a natural, healthy, God-fearing life, 
putting duty before feeling, and self-sacrifice before passion. 

To go to the root of education, and see what was meant 
by the word in the former ages of the world's history, we 
find that among the ancient Persians, and in the best times 
of the Greeks, the word meant what a man was and ivhat 
he could do, not what he knew. The oldest summary 
of education is that of the Persians of Cyrus: "To ride, 
to shoot with the bow, to speak the truth;" that is, the 
accomplished military chevalier — to manage the horse, to 
handle the best instrument of warfare known, and, finally, 
to speak the truth ; not in the narrow sense of not telling 
lies, but the attitude of the whole nature in its integrity, 
honor, and fearless loyalty ; in short, in the establishment 
of perfect habits. The perfect man is he who has all the 
perfect habits of mind and body. Education is the agency 
by which these perfections are created. Education, then, 
is not so much knowledge as capacity. A wide difference 
between it and the three B/s for one class of persons; 
the cramming for examination of another class. It is not 



life's shipwrecks. 329 

strange that so many lives are wrecked when we see how 
few are furnished with proper tools to do the work of life. 

Idleness, ignorance, and their companions, jealousy, 
hatred, revenge, love even, where it is wrong, these are the 
things which wreck lives. There are few who will not 
have to meet the gale, and stagger under its blow, few 
who at one time or another will not have to struggle or re- 
sist, conquer or yield to its force. Let it smite the ship 
unprepared, and all is over with it. One who has gone 
through and conquered such a storm, can conquer all storms 
thereafter ; but it is better for those who are caught in it, 
to sail out of it, to ride head to the wind until the storm 
blows itself out, for if one rope gives way, all is over; so 
strained to utmost tension is everything, that if one sheet 
be snapt, all snaps with it. 

A character which has not been strengthened by proper 
education and by principle may dropdown in such a storm, 
like a thing smitten with paralysis. A song, a softer day 
than usual, a sudden association, a sudden cry of the heart. 
The will is seized by the tyrant emotion, and the ship 
strikes in midnight darkness on the craggy ledge, and all 
is over. As these shipwrecks of life are oftener made by 
the idle than the occupied, it is another reason why 
mothers should seek occupation for their daughters, as 
well as for their sons, — why they should seek to make them 
strong and true, instilling self-control, laying firm and solid 
the foundations upon which each individual builds up his 
or her character. Then will our sons and daughters grow 
up, not victims of evil, but victorious over evil. 



330 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 



CHAPTER XI. 

REQUIREMENTS FOR HAPPINESS IN MARRIED LIFE — THE 
MARRIAGE CEREMONY 

" All ^Republicans of gentle birth admit the instinct which Lads 
1 like ' to match with ' like,' an equality of blood and race." — Bulwer. 

11 The evils arising from the excessive liberty permitted to American 
youth cannot be cured by laws. If we are ever to root it out, it 
must begin at the very bottom. Family life must be reformed .... 
For children parental authority is the only sure guide. Coleridge 
well said that he who was not able to govern himself must be gov- 
erned by others, and experience has shown that children of civilized 
parents are as little able to govern themselves as the children of sav- 
ages The liberty, or rather the license of our youth will 

have to be curtailed. As our society is becoming complex and arti- 
ficial, like older societies in Europe, our children will have to approxi- 
mate to them in status, and parents will have to waken to a sense 
of their responsibilities, and postpone their ambitions and their 
pleasures to their duties.' 1 — Review of Statements made by Mr. Corn- 
stock, Special, Agent of Post Office Department. 

u Though fools spurn hymen's gentle powers, 
We, who improve the golden hours, 

By sweet experience know 
That marriage, rightly understood, 
Gives to the tender and the good 

A paradise below." — Cotton. 

It is greatly to be regretted that in America the circum- 
stances which most tend to make or mar women receive so 
little, attention. Upon our daughters are usually centred 
all that generosity and the sincerest affection can bestow. 
They are carefully educated, liberally provided for, and no 
safeguard can too vigilantly protect these treasures from 



HAPPINESS IN MARRIED LIFE. 331 

disease, from the contamination of. evil, and from vulgarity 
of manner. A girl's natural protectors know by experi- 
ence, if not by intuition, that her purity is her chief at- 
traction to honorable manhood, that a certain coyness 
which hides the secrets of her nature, and a quiet dignity 
which reserves the charms which heaven has bequeathed 
her, for him upon whom she bestows the treasures of her 
heart, embody the allurements which men desire their 
wives to possess. They know that virginal freshness is a 
power respected by the most depraved,. and that with true 
men the influence of such wives is almost omnipotent. In 
other countries this truth is so fully realized that daugh- 
ters are guarded by the vigilance of parents, in their scru- 
tiny of all the men who enter their households. With us, 
the social freedom of which we boast, deprives parents of 
their prerogative, and not unfrequently brings sad results 
in its train. Does any right-thinking man, asks a journal- 
ist, choose as a life companion, and for the mother of his 
children, a woman whose real self was long ago given to 
others ? Marriage is an actual partnership which has 
more to do with our prosperity than any other, and here 
we find the reason why one of the parties so often puts in 
fraudulent capital ; for it is a fraud when a woman brings 
to her husband, or a man to his wife, worn-out affections, 
stale hackneyed emotions, writes an able journalist. 

It has been said, it is the mother who moulds the char- 
acter and fixes the destiny of the child. It is, then, her 
province to guard well her daughters, that the bloom of 
innocence may not be brushed off by wanton hands, but 
protected and preserved for him who will most value it — 
her husband. If the mother leaves her daughter un- 
guarded, to receive attentions authorized in these days, 
without any of the restraints of parental presence, she may 
feel sure that the man with whom her child is thrown will 



332 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

treat her with a liberty which is graduated by her indi- 
vidual character, but which is inevitably a liberty. The 
man has no idea of dishonoring or even injuring her in 
public esteem, but he accepts the intimacy or friendship 
of the young girl as one of the good things which society 
offers him; he would be a dull fool if, when lovely Thais 
is left to sit beside him, he did not take the goods the 
gods provided him Here is one of the results of this 
social freedom. Any man is at liberty to gain the affec- 
tions of the young, girl. He may mean marriage, or he 
may not mean marriage, it is all the same. Instead of 
the prompt exclusion that he merits from the parents, 
simply as a protection for their child, American society 
rules that the father and mother of the girl shall remain 
passive. The man may be the most desirable or the most 
unsuitable husband for the daughter, but they have no 
right to speak until he formally proposes. If they shall 
"ask his intentions," according to the national custom of 
our forefathers, the girl herself, would be the first to rebel, 
on the ground that she was made ridiculous, and that her 
" friend " was mistaken for her lover. When her friend 
betakes himself to fresh fields, the woman controls her dis- 
appointments as she can, and marries somebody for an 
establishment or a home. 

Here we have the key to much of the unhappiness of 
modern married life, to the intimacies that spring up be- 
tween single men and married women, and to their shame 
be it said, between young unmarried women and married 
men. Happy marriages are founded upon various condi- 
tions. Respect for the object of fancy is as necessary to 
abiding happiness as that the heart should be interested. 
There should be social equality, intellectual sympathy, 
and sufficient means. A great many people are hopelessly 
estranged by a social gulf between the families of the wife 



HAPPINESS IN MARRIED LIFE. 333 

and husband. The man, if it is he who has faced the 
risk, will find in the end that he has made a sacrifice, for 
which he has grievously miscalculated the cost. The 
wife, stung by the discovery that her husband does not 
feel her an adequate compensation for all that he has lost, 
loses all desire to help him bear the evil, which, in the 
headstrong impulse of early youth, blindly set on its own 
personal gratification, he has brought upon himself, and so 
two lives must become soured and spoiled, if neither has 
strength to keep itself sweet in a life where fretting cares 
are doubled instead of divided, from want of congeniality. 
Or it may be the wife that finds her ideal is made of 
clay ; that the noble qualities with which she has endowed 
her lover have no existence in the husband, and that they 
are drifting farther and farther apart as the years pass on, 
— a terrible punishment for a hasty, ill-advised marriage. 
Intellectual sympathy is another condition of fireside hap- 
piness. Let the woman's first requisite be a man who is 
domestic in his tastes, and the man's first object be a 
woman who can make his home a place of rest for him. 
The beautiful in heart is a million times of more avail, as 
securing domestic happiness, than the beautiful in person. 
They who marry for physical characteristics or external 
considerations, will fail to find happiness in their homes. 
As we should say to women who wish for domestic happi- 
ness, never marry a pleasure-seeker, an idle man, so we 
would say to men, never marry any but an intelligent 
woman, for after purity, quite the next best thing is that 
good sense which comes with intelligence. It is the best 
of dowries. There is no burden on earth like a foolish 
woman tied to a competent man, with the one exception 
of a false woman. No beauty, no sweetness, can compen- 
sate for the absence of clear thought and quick comprehen- 
sion. 



334 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Many men have a secret belief that intelligence and the 
domestic virtues cannot go together ; that a wife who can 
feel intellectual interests will never be content to stay at 
home and look after the children ; that a clever woman 
will, above all, be incapable of worshipping themselves. 
There never was a theory more unreasonable, more mis- 
chievous, or more unfounded; for there is more capacity 
of affection, of domesticity, and of self-sacrifice in the able 
than in the foolish. 

He who has two oars in his boat has a great advantage 
over the man who has but one. Cultivation diminishes 
selfishness, and by enlarging the field of thought makes us 
more fit to bear the harassing cares and troubles of the 
world, and raises us above petty jealousies and prejudices, 
softening the heart, and making us more kind and consid- 
erate to others. Another essential for happiness in mar- 
ried life is trust. Love without trust is no love at all. 
From the moment a man puts his heart into the hands of 
a woman, she has the responsibility of his life. Hence- 
forth her personal qualities are so much positive or nega- 
tive quantity added to his own. If the motto of both be : 

I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
Loved I not honor more, 

the woman will be, in her own way, her lover's Beatrice, 
raising and lighting him with her own spiritual nature, 
and purifying the current of earthly love with the water 
of life itself. Theirs is emphatically true love, refining 
and ennobling each. 

Once engaged, a girl has need to take care that her 
spirits and love of notice do not betray her into looks and 
words disloyal to her lover and unfair to other men. 
She may be secure in her heartfelt allegiance to him, but 
to toy with it is not only unsafe but wrong. Coquetry 



HAPPINESS IN MARRIED LIFE. 335 

has been compared to the thorn which guards the rose, 
flirtation to the slime of a worm that has crept over the 
fair petals. 

Moral and religious sympathy is another requisite ; not 
that the two characters should be precisely similar. It is 
a great deal better that it should not be so, otherwise 
there is nothing to learn and everything to lose. Faults 
are intensified and hardened, even goodness has less en- 
couragement to grow. Moreover, the same sort of quality 
in a man is somewhat different in a woman, made different 
in the purpose of God. Rather, while supplementing 
each other's deficiencies, bearing with each other's infirmi- 
ties, and encouraging each other's impulses for good, hus- 
band and wife should be walking side by side on the 
same clear path of moral purpose and social usefulness 
with joint hope of immortality. 

Men, as they look down the vista of the past, can re- 
member how they were devoted to women, the memory 
of whom fails to call up anything but.a vague sort of won- 
der how they ever could have fallen into the state of in- 
fatuation in which they once were. The same with 
women. There have been heart-breaking separations be- 
tween those who have learned that the sting of parting 
does not last forever. Even the heart, which has been 
lacerated by a hopeless or misplaced attachment, when 
severed from the cause of its woe, gradually heals and 
prepares itself to receive fresh wounds from bodies which 
are present and patent to its senses, for affection requires 
either a constant contemplation of, or intercourse with its 
object to keep it alive. The proverb, "A young man 
married is a young man marred," must have had its origin 
in the fact that the choice of a man at twenty-one is 
not such as he would make at a more mature stage of 
his existence; but whatever be the age when his courtship 



336 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

commences, he must not weary the object of his devotion 
with too much of his presence. 

A man ought always to be able to judge whether he 
will be favorably heard before he ventures upon his offer. 
When accepted he must avoid all airs of mastership, all 
foolish displays of jealousy, remembering that quarrels 
impair mutual respect and diminish love. The lady must 
not be capricious or exacting, and both should remember 
that they are in the first stage of what is to be a life-long 
friendship, and should cultivate the utmost degree of 
mutual candor, confidence, and sympathy. It must surely 
be unnecessary to hint that no approach towards familiar- 
ity must ever be indulged in. The most perfect reserve in 
courtship, even in cases of the most ardent attachment, is 
indispensable to the confidence and trust of married life to 
come. All public displays of devotion should be avoided. 
They tend to lessen mutual respect and make the actors 
ridiculous in the eyes of others. It is quite possible for a 
man to show every conceivable attention to the lady to 
whom he is engaged, and yet to avoid committing the 
slightest offence against delicacy or good taste. 

No w r ellbred woman will receive a man's attentions, how- 
ever acceptable, too eagerly ; nor will she carry reserve so 
far as to be altogether discouraging. It is quite possible 
for a man to show attention and even assiduity up to a 
certain point, without becoming a lover; and it is equally 
possible for the lady to let it be seen that he is not disagreea- 
ble to her, without actually encouraging him. No man 
likes to be refused, and no man of tact will risk a refusal. 

The gentleman presents the lady with a ring as soon as 
they are engaged. Flowers she can always accept. A 
sensible man will not give more presents than he can 
justly afford. It is the privilege of the mother of the 
fiancee to fix the wedding day of the daughter. The 



THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 337 

trousseau should be in accordance with the means. It is 
not wise or well for ladies of limited means to provide 
themselves with showy outfits. 

"New York Social Etiquette" says: Ui The Home 
Journal ? is expected to gazette the engagement very soon 
after it is made known to kinspeople and intimate friends. 
Acquaintances are thus informed of the new relation, and 
the proper felicitations are expressed in the usual manner. 
Not unfrequently this journal is selected as the only 
medium through which an announcement of an approach- 
ing marriage is made to the world outside of the home of 
the bride. The propriety of adopting this method of com- 
municating with society at large is approved by our high- 
est authorities in polite affairs. This journal occupies the 
same position, and serves the same purposes for our repub- 
lic as the court journals in Europe." 

After the marriage invitations are issued, the fiancee does 
not appear in public. It is also de rigueur that she does 
not see the bridegroom on the wedding-day until they 
meet at the altar. 

Only relatives and the most intimate friends are asked 
to be bridemaids — the sisters of the "bride and the bride- 
groom where it is possible. The bridegroom chooses his 
best man and the ushers from his circle of relatives and 
friends of his own age and from the relations of his fiancee 
of suitable age. The dresses of the bridemaids are not 
given unless their circumstances are such as to make it 
necessary. 

The bridal costume most approved for young brides is 
of white silk, high corsage, a long, wide veil of white tulle 
reaching to the feet, and a wreath of maiden blush roses 
with orange blossoms. The roses she can continue to wear, 
but the orange blossoms are only suitable for the ceremony. 
No jewelry of any description, for when she goes up to 

22 



338 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the altar she is still a young girl, but she leaves it with the 
privilege of ever after appearing at her will in diamonds, 
thick silks, expensive laces and cashmere shawls, where 
her husband's means permit these indulgences. 

The bride breakfasts in her room and meets the bride- 
groom for the first time that day at the altar. The bride- 
groom and ushers wear full morning dress, dark blue, or 
dark frock-coats, light neckties and light trousers. The 
bridegroom wears white gloves ; the ushers wear gloves of 
some delicate color. White neckties are not worn with 
frock-coats under any circumstances. Nothing black is ad- 
missible at a wedding in England. In France, the mothers 
of the bride and bridegroom frequently wear black velvet 
gowns and black lace bonnets with some bright color in 
the garniture of both gowns and bonnets, and the bride- 
groom is married in full evening dress, although the bride 
always wears a high corsage and long sleeves. 

Where the bride makes presents to bridemaids on her 
wedding day, they generally consist of some article of 
jewelry, not costly, and given more as a memento of the 
occasion than for its own intrinsic worth. The bridegroom 
sometimes gives his groomsmen a scarfpin of some quaint 
device as a memento of the day, and as a slight acknowl- 
edgment of their services. 

Where there are no bridemaids nor ushers, the order of 
the ceremonies is as follows : The members of the bride's 
family set off before the bride. She follows with her 
mother. The bridegroom awaits them and gives his arm 
to the mother. They walk up the aisle to the altar, the 
mother falling back to her position on the left. The 
father, or relative representing the father, conducts the 
bride to the bridegroom, who stands at the altar-steps with 
his face turned towards her as she approaches, and the 
father falls back to the left. The relatives follow, taking 



THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY. • 339 

their places standing ; those of the bride to the left, those 
of the groom to the right, as previously arranged in the 
rehearsal — for a rehearsal should always precede the cere- 
mony by a day or two. After kneeling at the altar a 
moment, the bride, standing on the left of the bridegroom, 
takes the glove off from her left hand, whilst he takes the 
glove off from his right. The service then begins. The 
father of the bride gives her away by bowing when the 
question is asked, which greatly simplifies the part formerly 
assigned to him of stepping forward and placing his daugh- 
ter's hand in the hand of the clergyman. 

Perfect self-control should be exhibited by all parties 
during the ceremony; nothing is more undignified than 
exhibitions of feeling in public. People who are unable 
to control their emotions should stay at home. 

The bride leaves the altar, taking the bridegroom's right 
arm. They pass down the aisle without looking to the 
right or to the left. It is considered very bad form to 
recognize acquaintances by bows and smiles while in the 
church. 

The bride and bridegroom drive away in their own car- 
riage, the rest follow in their carriages. 

Where the circle of friends on both sides is very exten- 
sive, it has of late become customary to send invitations to 
such as are not called to the wedding-breakfast to attend 
the ceremony at church. This stands in place of issuing 
cards. No one must think of calling on the newly-mar- 
ried who has not received either an invitation to the cere- 
mony at church, or cards after their establishment in their 
new home. 

The following explicit directions as to the latest New 
York form for conducting the' marriage ceremony are prin- 
cipally from the "Home Journal." 

When the bridal party has arranged itself for entrance, 



340 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the ushers, in pairs, march slowly up to the altar and turn 
to the right, keeping step to the organ music. Behind 
them follows the groom, alone. When he reaches the altar 
he turns, faces the aisle, and watches intently for the coming 
of his bride. Of course, he does not permit his attention 
to be distracted from the object of present paramount in- 
terest. After a very slight interval the bridemaids follow 
him, in pairs if there be but few, and they turn to the left. 

Another very brief interval of waiting, and the bride, 
alone and entirely veiled, with her eyes cast down, follows 
her companions. The groom comes forward a few steps to 
meet her, takes her hand, and places her at the altar. 
Both kneel for a moment's silent devotion. The parents 
of the bride having followed her, stand just behind her, 
and slightly at the left. The service by the clergyman 
now proceeds as usual. All churches, at present, use the 
ring and vary the sentiment of its adoption to suit the 
customs and ideas of their own rites. A jewelled ring has 
been for many years the sign and symbol of betrothal, but 
at present a plain gold circlet, with the date of the en- 
gagement inscribed within, is generally preferred. This 
ring is removed by the groom at the altar, passed to the 
clergyman, and used in the ceremony. A jewelled ring is 
placed upon her hand by the groom on the way home from 
the church, or as soon after the service as is convenient. 
It stands guard over its precious fellow, and is a confirma- 
tion of the first promise. 

When the bride and bridegroom are passing out of 
church, the bridemaids follow slowly, each upon the arm 
of an usher, and they afterward hasten onward as speedily 
as possible to welcome the bride at her own door, and to 
arrange themselves about the bride and groom, in the salon, 
half of the ladies upon her side and half upon his, the 
first bridemaid retaining the place of honor. The ushers, 



THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 311 

at the door of the salon, offer themselves as escorts to parties 
who arrive slowly from the church, conducting them to the 
bridal party, there presenting them by name. This an- 
nouncement becomes necessary when two families and two 
sets of friends are brought together for the first time. If 
ladies are present without gentlemen, the ushers are careful 
to accompany them to the breakfast or refreshment room, 
or provide them with attendants, after which the ladies can 
easily manage to be comfortable by themselves. 

The room for bridal presents is no longer thrown open 
to guests. Indeed, the universal bridal present has fallen 
into disuse along with the universal funeral bouquet. It is 
not any more considered good form to talk about these 
contributions. Of course the bride acknowledges every 
gift that she receives by a note written with her own hand, 
but that is all. 

If the wedding occur in the evening, the only difference 
in the ceremonials of the morning is that the ushers or 
groomsmen wear full toilette, and the bridal pair retire 
quietly to dress for their journey before the dancing party 
disperses, and thus leave unobserved. At the morning 
wedding only bridemaids, ushers, and relatives remain to 
witness the departure of the pair. 

If the newly wedded commence life in a home of their 
own, it is customary to issue "at home" cards for a few 
evenings at no distant date, unless the marriage occurs in 
early summer, when these informal receptions are delayed 
until autumn. Only such persons are invited as the young 
people choose to keep as friends, or perhaps only those 
whom they can afford to retain. It is an easy and sensible 
opportunity for carefully rearranging one's social list, be- 
cause there are limitations to hospitality, which are fre- 
quently more necessary than agreeable. This list of old 
friends and acquaintances cannot be too seriously considered 



342 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

and sifted, and no moment is so favorable as at the begin- 
ning of housekeeping. This custom of arranging a fresh 
list is admitted as a social necessity, and nobody is offended. 

The entry of the bridal party to the church may be 
varied to suit the taste, but care should be taken to avoid 
dramatic effects while endeavoring to be picturesque and 
impressive. If the formality described be followed, the 
parties adopting it will be certain to find precedents 
for their style among the highest social circles of New 
York. But there are timid brides, w T ho prefer to ad- 
here strictly to the fashion of their grandmothers, and gain 
content in the imitation of a long line of worthy examples. 
In such cases the bridemaids first pass up the aisle, each 
with a gentleman on whom to lean (this style is almost 
strictly an American fashion), they turn at the altar, the 
ladies going to their left and the gentlemen to their right, 
and the groom follows, bearing his destined mother-in-law 
on his arm. This lady he seats, as speedily as politeness 
permits, in a convenient front pew at his left. The bride 
follows, clinging to the arm of her father, or if she be 
orphaned, her next of kin supports her on her way to her 
expectant groom. At her left, and just a step or two back 
of her, her father waits until asked to give her away, 
which he does by taking her right hand and placing it in 
that of the clergyman. After this brief but important 
formality, he joins the lady who entered with the groom 
and becomes her escort. The father and mother pass out 
of the church just behind the bridal company. 

Sometimes, in America, if there are no bridemaids, the 
ushers walk into church in pairs, just in advance of the 
groom, and parting at the altar, half stand at one side and 
half at the other. While the clergyman is congratulating 
the bride they pass out in pairs, a few yards in advance of 
the married party. 



THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 343 

Weddings at home vary but little from those at church. 
The music, the assembling of friends, and the descent of 
the bridal party, and their entree to the position selected 
are just the same. An altar of flowers and the place for 
kneeling can be easily arranged at home. The space be- 
hind the altar need be no wider than is required for the 
clergyman to stand. The altar is generally only a high 
fender or railing, entirely wound and concealed by greenery 
or blossoms. Whatever other floral accessories are desired, 
such as the marriage-bell, horseshoe, or a white dove, etc., 
can be arranged with ease by a skilled florist. 

When the marriage ceremony is concluded, the party 
turn in their places, and face their friends, who wait to con- 
gratulate them. If space be of importance, the kneeling- 
stool, and even the floral altar may be removed a little 
later, without observation. The latter, however, is usually 
pushed back against the wall, and adds to the decorative 
part of the festivity. 

Calls and card-leaving by all the guests, upon the 
family of the bride, are a rigorous formality within ten 
days after the wedding. 

The marriage ceremonial of a widow differs only in the 
not wearing of the veil and the orange blossoms. She 
may be costumed in white, and have her maids at the 
altar if she pleases. This liberty has been given to her 
only within a few years, and refined taste will determine 
her in these matters. On her wedding cards of invitation 
her maiden name is used as a part of her proper name; 
this is but respect to her parents. Having dropped the 
initials of her deceased husband when she lays aside her 
crapes, she uses her own Christian name. If she have 
sons or unmarried daughters at the time she becomes 
again a wife, she prefixes the last name of her children to 
her new one on all ceremonious occasions in which they 



344 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

are interested in common with herself. This respect is 
really due to them, and etiquette permits it, although our 
social usages do not imperatively command its adoption. 

Of course the formalities which follow the marriage of 
a widow can seldom be regulated in the same manner as 
those of a younger bride. Circumstances must control the 
entertainments which follow the marriage of a widow, and 
no fixed forms can be arranged for them. A quiet taste 
and refined sentiments are the best regulators of these 
civilities. 

Fashion and common-sense unite in condemning the 
harassing bridal tour, prescribing a honeymoon of repose, 
exempted from all claims of society. It is no longer 
de rigueur to maintain any secrecy as to their plans for 
travelling where the newly married depart upon a tour. 

The bride drops her middle name if she desires to do 
so, taking her family name. 

Wedding breakfasts have been spoken of in another 
chapter. 

For the enlightment of those readers who live at a dis- 
tance from our most important social centres, the following 
information is given as to our latest forms for invitations 
to marriages. The invitation should be engraved in 
script. Neither visiting cards nor invitations are admis- 
sible in old English or German text. 



Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Vivian 

request your presence 

at the marriage of their daughter. 

Miss Bella E. Vivian, 

to 

Mr. Beresford Chesterfield, 

On Thursday, October 11th, at tioelve o'clock. 

Grace Church, 

Clarendon Square. 



THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 345 

This invitation requires no answer. Friends living in 
other towns and cities, receiving it, inclose their cards, and 
send by mail. Residents call on the family of the bride 
within the prescribed time, or as soon after as it is possible. 

The invitation to the wedding breakfast is inclosed in 
the same envelope, generally conveyed on a square card, 
the same size as the sheet of note-paper which bears the 
invitation for the ceremony, after it has been once folded 
across the middle. The following is one of the adopted 
forms : 

At Home 

Thursday morning, October 8th t 

from twelve until three o'clock. 

8 Clarendon Square. 

The separate cards of the bride and the bridegroom are 
no longer necessary. 

The card of admission to the church is narrower, and 
plainly engraved in large script. 

Grace Church, 
Ceremony at eleven o'clock. 

Generally, only half an hour intervenes between the 
ceremony and the reception. 

The order of the religious part of the marriage ceremony 
is fixed by the church in which it occurs. The appointed 
master of ceremonies is expected to be present as soon as 
the church doors are opened, as the spectacle of an 
awning and carpet in front of any edifice is a signal that 
halts the footsteps of all the idlers of the street. He takes 
good care that the white ribbon which is stretched across 
the main aisle, is placed far enough from the altar to 
provide sufficient room for every invited guest, remem- 
bering that ladies in grand toilette require ample space. 



346 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Sometimes an arch of flowers, mounted on wire netting by 
the florist, is arranged to divide those who wear the wed- 
ding garments from those who do not. The organist must 
be early at his post, with the list of compositions which he 
is expected to play during the arrival of the audience. 

The ushers, chosen from among the friends of both fam- 
ilies, stand by the inner entrance of the church, and offer 
their arms to escort the ladies, as they enter, to their 
proper seats in the church. If a lady be accompanied by 
a gentleman, he follows her to her seat. These ushers, 
knowing the two families, understand where to place the 
nearer and where the remoter kinspeople of the bridal 
party, the groom's friends being arranged upon the right 
of the entrance, and the bride's upon the left. This dis- 
tribution of guests places the father or guardian of the 
bride at the proper place during the ceremony. 

After the service, the ushers act as cavaliers of the bride- 
maids at the reception. The ushers wear dark frock-coats 
and light trousers, light neckties, and gloves of some deli- 
cate tint, like pearl-gray or lavender, perhaps to match the 
trousers. 

Those friends who receive the "At Home" invitations, 
acknowledge them as soon as received, and never fail to 
accept where there are no reasons to prevent. The guests 
bidden to a marriage in the house, or to a marriage feast 
following the ceremony in church, are in the same position 
as are they who receive an invitation from royalty. They 
do not feel at liberty to decline from any whim. Cards 
are afterwards left on the bride's family by those who are 
invited to the church, as well as by those who are invited 
to the house. 

Bridemaids and ushers should allow nothing short of 
illness or some unavoidable accident, to prevent them from 
officiating, thus showing their appreciation of the friend- 



AFTER MARRIAGE. 347 

ship which has caused their selection at this, the most im- 
portant event in life. 

Sometimes by reason of sudden mourning, some one of 
the bridemaids or ushers are prevented from attending, re- 
quiring a substitute to be found at the last moment. This 
is no easy task, for no one likes to call upon other than 
their most intimate friends for such services ; but where it 
is necessary to do so, the reasons should be well understood, 
that no opportunity may be given for the invidious and un- 
charitable comments which are always made, when the bride 
or bridegroom, from complex motives, select their attend- 
ants for reasons other than relationship and past intimacy. 

After marriage both husband and wife should remember 
that it is in home companionship that deference is most 
needed to lift the dulness out of our lives, and send the 
light of poetry into the heaviness of little cares, that in the 
home circle the forms of courtesy are by far the most 
precious, filling the atmosphere of daily existence with their 
fragrance. 

Self-abnegation is one of the lessons which love teaches, 
and where marriage is made a matter of moral judgment, 
it becomes the habit and not the exception, each striving 
to yield in matters where it is right to yield, and firm only 
where duty is concerned. Neglect the whole world rather 
than one another. Never deceive, for the heart, once mis- 
led, can never trust wholly again. Never find fault unless 
some criticism is needed, and then make it with tender looks 
and loving words. Let all mutual accommodations bo 
spontaneous, whole-souled, and free as air. The felicity of 
married life is in the mutual cultivation of usefulness. No 
man who remains a bachelor can hope for that degree of 
happiness and development which will come to him in 
married life, if his wife be loving and virtuous. In our 
land such women predominate everywhere. 



348 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Never reflect on a past action, which was done with a 
good motive, and with the best judgment of the individual. 
Make allowances for each other's weaknesses, at the same 
time that you endeavor to repress them mutually ; and 
lastly, let every wife remember that the one unpardonable 
sin in the eyes of creation's lord is to make him uncom- 
fortable, mentally or physically. 

In other words, wives who wish to retain their husbands 
as lovers must never indulge in fits of temper, hysterics, or 
other habits, which, easy to conquer in the outset, grow 
and strengthen with indulgence. Equally important is it 
that husbands should control their tempers and their 
tongues, and always leave home with loving words, and 
return to it with pleasant greetings. 

In those homes, where, for the sake of mutual improve- 
ment, the husband and wife have agreed to receive and 
give corrections in a kind spirit, there are they preparing 
themselves for the work which God gives to parents, of 
training lives for usefulness here and hereafter. 

Faithful unto death in all things, should be the motto 
of both, and forbearance with each other's peculiarities, 
their never-ending effort to attain. The glamour of court- 
ship having given place to the realities of life, they must 
accept the inevitable where they have made the mistake 
of an ill-assorted marriage and endure until the end, for 
better or for worse as it may be, for in so doing can they 
find their only consolation for having rashly failed to test 
their fitness for a lifelong companionship before it was too 
late. Duty without love is like thorns without roses, and 
such too often is married life to those whom glamour has led 
into it. But glamour is not always confined to courtship, 
and it is a happy thing when true, pure, and well-placed 
love sustains and beautifies married life with its continu- 
ance. There are other examples of glamour, which are not 



AFTER MARRIAGE. 349 

so desirable. Some journalist says: No lessons learned by 
experience, however sharply taught and sadly conned, can 
enlighten the numbed senses which love has sent to sleep 
by its magic fascination ; and things as plain as the sun in 
heaven to others, are dark as night, unfathomable as the 
sea, to those who let themselves love before they prove. 

Glamour can make an unsuspecting honest-hearted man 
give his good old family name and personal honor into 
the keeping of a woman who has not one qualification to 
make her a worthy custodian of either, and very many 
which one might have thought would have made any wise 
man hesitate before he gave himself and his precious treas- 
ures into such perilous guardianship. He alone ignores 
what all other men know ; he alone believes where others 
more than doubt. Yet the man whom she holds in thrall 
loves her, and marries to his ruin a nineteenth century 
Circe, who, if she does not transform him into a swine, 
does lower the tone of his mind so that she makes him 
accept dishonor for fame, and humiliation for glory. An- 
other, who finds Solomon's " crown of glory/' thinks no 
more of his treasure than if it w T ere an every-day trouve, 
and lets what might have been the sweetness of his mar- 
ried life run to waste through neglect and indifference. 

Again, it may be a young girl who is doomed to expe- 
rience its mortal blindness, accepting a man's attentions, 
and faithfully believing that he is honestly seeking in her 
his fitting life-companion. All his loving looks, and 
subtle, vague, suggestive words, which may mean any- 
thing, and to which he gives the meaning by his looks ; 
all his pretended confidences and crafty bids for sympathy, 
meant nothing but a selfish seeking of his own pleasure. 
Had she not been under the delusive glamour of love, she 
would have listened to her parents' counsels, and frus- 
trated his cruel aims. 



330 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Or some inexperienced youth may be entrapped by the 
wiles of a fair coquette before he knows where he is, though 
every one else can see the run of the lines and the shape 
of the trap, and more than one have spoken words of warn- 
ing, or called out to him to mind his ways. But under 
the spell he runs headlong into the jaws of ruin ; for 
there are some loyal hearts which can never shake off the 
effects of the glamour by which they have been led and 
betrayed, and who thenceforth lose their faith in the 
womanhood that they have trusted in as a Christian trusts 
in his Redeemer. 

No, to prove all things, and hold fast to that which is 
proved, is not the course of the man or woman who is 
under this glamour; yet, for lasting happiness in mar- 
ried life there is no more important requirement than this. 
In it is the true aspect and scope of duty to themselves 
and to each other ; this it is which keeps husbands and 
wives faithful unto death. 

Faithfulness makes our life with any one almost divine, 
for it seems to give the enduringness of God to human 
love, and bestows on it the beauty and colors of eternity. 

There is no comfort on this earth, which shakes ever 
beneath our feet, like that we feel when we can say, " I 
possess one on whose character and heart I can lean as on 
a rock." There is even a touch of heaven in affections 
which are guilty, when they are faithful unto death. He, 
then, who finds faithfulness on earth, finds a pearl of 
great price, for which he might sell all his goods, and live 
in poverty content. But how infinitely rare it is — so rare 
that it is hard to believe it exists at all in the perfection 
we demand. There is nothing for which we ask so much 
proof, and we do not give it faith till we have proved it, 
after years of trial, says Rev. Stopford Brooke. 

It is the one thing in which we make the least allow- 



AFTER MARRIAGE. 351 

ance for the weakness of human nature, for unless it is 
perfect we do not care for it. All its beauty lies in its 
being without a flaw. If it is stained, even in the slight- 
est, if a falsehood touches it, if, in a moment of vanity 
or heedlessness, something is done which is untrue to its 
strong delicate life, it is faithfulness no longer. The 
divinity of it passes away, and the thing is now of the 
earth, earthy. No wonder, then, that we want proof of 
this quality. It is far too great and dear a thing to trust 
in lightly, for the ruin is too terrrible almost for flesh and 
blood to bear, if, having truly trusted in the faithfulness 
of any one, it fail us in the end. To believe in the fidel- 
ity of love, and to abhor one's self afterwards for one's be- 
lief — no one will lightly expose himself to that who has 
once known the overwhelming misery of it. No one 
should ever trust to the faithfulness of man or woman, 
until it has been found to be as true in temptation as in 
its absence, in adversity as in joy. 

This may, at first thought, seem to make too great a 
demand on feeble human nature ; but men and women of 
thought and character, do not choose to enter lightly into 
such relations as ask for, or promise to give, absolute 
faithfulness, lest they should expose themselves to a treach- 
ery which may darken all their lives. They only ask 
much when this one quality is in the case, and when they 
give or receive it, they must give it and have it at its best. 
It must be faithfulness unto death. For the rest of life 
they do not make half as large demands as the thoughtless 
do. They do not expect their leaders in politics or religion 
to be always true to the highest; they do not expect per- 
fection of character in their friends, or unfailing justness and 
kindness, or perfect sympathy in sorrow, or unforgetfulness 
in absence; they do not expect entire nobility in act or 
speech, or unshaken courage in trial, or unstained faith- 



352 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

fulness to good. They do not expect these things ; they 
know their own weakness, and they do not think that 
others are not weak; they know how easily they are 
overtaken in a fault, and they make allowances for others, 
— they live and let live, and do not magnify, by slander 
or gossip, the frailties of their kind ; but if faithfulness is 
asked of them, or belief in the faithfulness of another, they 
do make there the demand that it shall be absolute, sus- 
tained, perfect — for they know that the failure of it would 
turn their life into a desert. This is a chance that no man 
or woman will lightly run. And yet it is better to run it, 
and take its possible misery, than to be so guarded and 
suspicious as not to be able to believe in faithful love. It 
is better to love, believe, and be deceived, than to distrust 
all, than to be afraid to risk one's happiness on the faith 
of another, where that one has given no cause for distrust. 
Men and women are born to believe and trust, and will do 
so where the qualities exist which inspire belief and confi- 
dence. Some terrible blow must first cut into the heart 
before the vital blood of faith flows away and leaves it 
robbed of this, its life-giving power. But it is possible 
to be faithful unto God in the very bitterness of such an 
experience even, and he who is so, will not lose faith in 
human nature because of the glamour which led him on to 
trust one false heart. More than one Gibraltar bears the 
buffeting of storms and the fierce winds from polar cur- 
rents, while Table Rock crumbles and disappears because 
it has no secure foundation. There must be a secure foun- 
dation for every rock, for every house, or, when storms 
beat upon it, it will fall away. To be faithful unto death 
are words of great significance. Even without sharp 
trials, there are difficulties enough in ordinary life to try 
our fidelity to duty, to call upon the exercise of all our 
force of character. When we have to go on, day by day, 



AFTER MARRIAGE. 353 

contending with a passionate nature, or even a sluggish 
one — limiting the one, enkindling the other — meeting 
small temptations every hour, so that watchfulness must 
never be relaxed ; when no sooner is one wrong-doing laid 
in the grave than another rises up, so that the sword of 
life is never in the scabbard ; when we know that this 
must go on for years, till death comes — then, not to give 
way to anger, or to weariness, not to brood over the battle, 
but to take it frankly as it comes, as part of the day's 
work ; to make of high endeavor an inward light, which 
keeps the path before us always bright; to conquer the 
chill of custom and the weight of commonplace, and be 
inspired always by an inward thought; to pour into life 
such love of God and man that all things will grow beau- 
tiful and worthy to be done ; and to look forward, perse- 
vering to the last, "from well to better, daily self-sur- 
passed," this is to be faithful unto death, and for these things 
there is the crown of life. Great are the powers of man 
in the power of God, but there is one greater than all, it is 
a faithful heart. 

Home is by heritage the woman's kingdom; there at 
least she reigns supreme; and, surely, to embellish that 
home, and to make happy the lives of the near and dear 
ones who dwell within it, is a task of no little honor, re- 
warded, by no 6cant meed of gratitude and praise. 

AYho can find a virtuous woman ? for her price is far 
above rubies. 

The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. 

She will do him good, and not evil, all the days of her 
life. 

She stretcheth out her hand to the poor ; yea, she reach- 
eth forth her hands to the needy. 

She openeth her mouth with wisdom, and in her tongue 
is the law of kindness. 

23 



354 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eat- 
eth not the bread of idleness. 

Her children rise up, and call her blessed ; her husband 
also, and he praiseth her. 



MIXED SOCIETY. 355 



CHAPTER XII. 

MIXED SOCIETY — THE FAST SCHOOL — DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 
INNOCENCE AND VIRTUE— THE MOTHER'S INFLUENCE, 
AND THE INFLUENCE OF BOOKS IN FORMING CHARACTER. 

" I must put you on your guard, my dear Sylvia, against both the 
manners and the morals — for it is difficult to separate the two — that 
prevail among the set to which the Flounders belong. They are ex- 
ceedingly fast, and, to use a phrase, which I am told is much in 
vogue, " rowdy." It is the fault of the rich parvenu society to which 
they belong, to tolerate and cultivate a familiarity of address, man- 
ner, and tone, which you will never meet with among really well- 
bred people. The time was when, if men elected to be fast and 
rowdy, they had to be fast and rowdy among themselves, or, at worst, 
among women who were not in society. Then it never entered any 
one's head to suppose that love was made to an unmarried girl, save 
in the lower ranks of society, but for the honorable purposes of mar- 
riage ; the most abandoned and adventurous men confining their 
enterprises to those married women who were thought capable of dis- 
gracing their condition. It has remained for our age, which boasts 
so much of moral progress, to produce married men, who pay court 

to unmarried girls, and to produce girls to listen to them 

Very few men, till after they have passed middle life, have much 
interest in women remaining virtuous. So long as their mothers, 
sisters, and wives conduct themselves properly, that is all they seem 
to require." — Letter of a Grandmother in " The Truth." 

" Children are what the mothers are; 
No fondest father's fondest care 
Can fashion so the infant's heart." — Landor. 

American society (especially at its summer resorts) has 
been said to be a very elaborate puzzle to comprehend, and 
foreigners often think that wealth is its " open-sesame ; " 
but whatever influence wealth may have, culture has more 



356 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

in its really best circles. It may be entirely overshadowed 
by claims of wealth, through sheer force of superior num- 
bers, in some places, and in some classes ; but it is every- 
where recognized in itself as a sufficient passport to the 
highest social circles. Education, says an English writer, 
is the keynote of the best society ; u A blockhead makes 
a blockhead his companion," says Emerson ; and it will be 
noticed that when an Englishman, or any foreigner, pos- 
sessing bad manners, visits this country, he chooses that 
circle, or clique, in which he feels the most at home. He 
would not feel at ease in the company of wellbred persons 
anywhere. Devoid, himself, of that delicate tact which is 
far more subtle than any mere occasional veneer of con- 
ventional manner, he betrays the coarse and vulgar soul 
which bad manners indicate; for nothing is truer than the 
old saying, " Manners are the index of the soul." We 
may find this tact in humble artisans, we may miss it in 
aristocrats jj but the lower we go down in the social strata, 
the less do we find of that mutual courtesy and forbearance 
which leads its members to place any value upon the fine 
points which regulate the intercourse of all wellbred 
people. 

Now, if the matter of personal refinement, and the ab- 
sence of vulgarities, had only to do with mere conventional 
usages, its presence or absence would be of very little sig- 
nificance, and certainly would not be of sufficient impor- 
tance to make it one of the questions of the day, as it is. 
But a great deal more is effected by personal culture than 
by observance of a code of arbitrary details. The high- 
breeding which was practically the same in the Athens of 
Pericles, the Rome of Augustus, the Constantinople of 
Justinian, the Paris of Louis XIV, and the cosmopolitan 
drawing-rooms of our own day, is ultimately reducible to 
the factors of that consideration for each other's feelings, 



MIXED SOCIETY. 357 

which is the social exponent of the Law of Rights, and 
familiarity with all those matters which set forth the Law 
of Beauty, whether in literature, art, dress, or personal 
culture. Hence, there is quite a charm to the polished in 
polished society, quite apart from its moral or intellectual 
level. Men and women who have had all the advantages 
of refinement from their cradles are easy to get along with, 
because the whole bent of their education, such as it is, has 
been to inculcate lessons of social tact, of mutual forbear- 
ance, of habitual familiarity with graceful, beautiful, and 
delicate things. They would feel any gross rudeness like 
a sword-thrust, and consequently they are the ones w T ho 
respect the claims of others, even as they expect their own 
to be respected. One practical result of all this is, that a 
powerful curb is put upon self-conceit and self-assertion, 
vulgarity of nature and purse-pride, and upon all whose 
tendency of their self-indulgence is to make others un- 
comfortable. By this silent repression the weak are pro- 
tected against the powerful, and the liberty, equality, and 
fraternity of pleasant intercourse are made possible. Men 
and women who are rude, pushing and pretentious, or too 
loud and pronounced, or who are wanting in culture, who 
are too much given to narrative, to punning, to sarcasm, or 
to tattling, who monopolize the conversation, paying little 
attention to what is said in reply, are not accepted as good 
form, and thus society is protected. 

What American society is really most in need of to-day 
is a better general understanding of the duties and privi- 
leges of its members — a settled code of regulations, such 
as is found everywhere in corresponding circles abroad, 
and by means of which people meet each other in harmony 
and peace, with the greatest amount of pleasure to all 
parties. Now, misunderstandings are constantly occurring 
which with an established code might be prevented. 



358 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

A stranger, arriving at Newport for the first time this 
summer, sent his letters and made his calls at the houses 
where his letters introduced him. He was most cordially 
received by all, invited to return on their reception days, 
and also to dine with one of the families. The gentleman 
who extended the dinner invitation called upon him ; but 
the days passed on, and no calls or cards were received 
from the gentlemen of the other families. Consequently 
he did not feel at liberty to accept the informal invitations 
that had been extended to him upon the occasion of his 
calls at the other houses. When, at last, he met one of 
the ladies, he was taken kindly to task for absenting him- 
self on the lady's reception day. Surprised to find such 
conflicting ideas, he addressed a note to the lady whose 
dinner invitation he had accepted, telling her the circum- 
stances, and asking her to give him her opinion of the ne- 
glect upon their next meeting. The following quotation 
from the note explains itself: 

" I fear that I have offended Mrs. Good form by not 
understanding a certain point of etiquette as she did. To 
have varying ideas as to social duties is as confusing as to 
have a double standard for weights and measures Of the 
three families to whom I have brought letters of intro- 
duction, only yourself understood points of civility as I 
did, and consequently your husband was the only one who 
left a card for me at my lodgings. Not being ' native here 
and to the manner born/ what wonder if I give offence to 
some ? " 

Here was a point where, had the gentleman who took 
the letters been acquainted with our neglect of European 
customs, he would not have waited to have his call returned 
before accepting the cordially extended invitations of those 
to whom he had brought them. However important it 
may be in Europe to receive the card of the gentleman 



MIXED SOCIETY. 359 

which announces to you that you are admitted to his house 
upon the footing of an acquaintance, it is considered by 
many in America a thing of no moment; and an invitation 
given by a lady, formally or informally, should be accepted 
as cordially as if the form of leaving a card on her hus- 
band's part had been gone through with. Many Amer- 
icans who scrupulously observe this form with foreigners, 
omit it with their own countrymen because of the non- 
importance which is here attached to the receiving of a re- 
turn card before accepting an invitation. The invitation, 
in fact, is considered by some as the return courtesy that 
the call and letter demand, and few persons in America 
would, under such circumstances, think a previous call 
upon a single gentleman absolutely binding. Not so with 
a first call made by a lady. That requires a return call 
everywhere, but if the acquaintance of the person calling 
is not desired, cards are handed in by the footman without 
any inquiries being made as to whether the ladies are at 
home. 

"Wellbred people are punctilious in their observance of 
all rules which involve a regard for the feelings of others, 
considering a disregard of them an unpardonable vulgarity. 
The tribute we all claim for ourselves as our inalienable 
due from others, is also their inherited and inalienable 
right, without regard to varying circumstances of birth 
and social position. 

Great weight attaches to family descent in many parts 
of our country. When we remember that one family is 
as old as another as far as age is concerned, we see the 
absurdity of valuing a family alone for its age ; but when 
we find one family old in culture, physical and mental, 
and in the introduction into life of the attractive and 
beautiful, the high and unselfish j and another family new 
and crude, with no appreciation of high and noble qual- 



360 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

ities of mind and heart, then we see why it is that, even 
in a republic, families are valued as being old families. 
If such families seem sometimes to be despotic, in certain 
circles, is it not better than that despotism of wealth which 
is under the reign of pure and unadulterated snobbishness? 

The English complain that the peers and baronets of 
recent creation are influencing the manners, and lowering 
the tone of society with their bustling ways and vile 
habits ; and still others hold the heir-apparent as respon- 
sible for the change, in replacing the original with the 
counterfeit presentment, false standards of honor, perverted 
conceptions of dignity, for the genuine. Here it is, where 
the deepest roots of snobbishness lie — deeper than those 
which germinate in the ostentation of newly and suddenly- 
acquired wealth. Snobbishness implies unreality, pretence ; 
and whatever tends io place the unreal above the real, the 
accident above the essence, is one of the manifestations of 
snobbishness. This it is which makes the reign of wealth 
which some of our social circles are under, not merely a 
tyranny, but a peril. At present there is not visible the 
slightest indication on the part of those, who might pos- 
sibly have the power, to terminate or to mitigate this 
despotism ; still when one recalls what society in the same 
circles was, especially in New York, from five to ten years 
since, one is compelled to acknowledge, that outwardly it 
is better in morals. 

An Englishman writing on the subject of " Mixed Amer- 
ican Society," says: u As everywhere else, social manners 
are built up by ladies, and American ladies of really good 
society are admirably polished. They cannot fail, in the 
course of time, to polish the men, too, and the day is not 
far distant when New York, Boston, and Newport society 
will be as refined as that of the Faubourg St. Germain, 
and that of the royal part of the West End." 



THE FAST SCHOOL. 361 

The <e Saturday Keview" complains bitterly of the ten- 
dency, in English society, to increasing freedom of man- 
ners, and a relaxation of those prudent restraints on 
giddiness or forwardness, which used to be an indispensable 
protection to all modest women. There is a sufficient ac- 
cumulation of human experience since the world began to 
explain the necessity of those social rules which are now 
falling into contempt, and the danger of disregarding 
them. The conduct of people mainly depends upon their 
habits, and if those habits tend in a certain direction, and 
present constant temptation to, and opportunities for evil 
doing, the decline is usually found slippery enough by those 
who try how far they can slide, in the hope they will still 
be able to pull themselves up again on the verge of sudden 
peril. It is not merely that the prevalence of free and 
easy manners affords a convenient covering to vicious 
courses, but that it also serves as an encouragement to in- 
nocent people to trust themselves on dangerous ground, 
^Nothing is so fatal as the curiosity which leads women 
into experiments of this kind, and it is inevitable that 
out of a number of cases there should be some disasters. 
It is no excuse to say that some women are quite able to 
take care of themselves under such circumstances, for, in 
the first place, this is seldom true, and, in the next, mis- 
chief is done by the example which is set to those of 
warmer feelings, or weaker resolutions. Cases occur from 
time to time which supply illustrations. Womanly mod- 
esty has been compared to an onion, which is composed of 
successive folds, and, these being stripped off, one by one, 
there is found to be nothing left. The suppression of any 
of the precautions which are required to keep libertines 
at arm's length, not only weakens the general defence, 
but fosters the audacity and unscrupulousness cf the enemy. 
It is quite impossible for any one who has his eyes open to 



362 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

be blind to the injurious influence which fast women are 
having upon society. Indeed, the fashion of the day in 
fast circles is to sail so very near the wind, that they who 
have altogether renounced the restraints of law and opin- 
ion, and who are so far honest as to be consistent, must 
feci their manor poached upon by men and women whose 
aim is to seem to be much worse than they really are, says 
the "London Times." Whether it be in talk or in deed, 
in manners, in style, or in dress, the age is certainly every- 
where showing a very open contempt of the safeguards 
which once formed the advance posts of propriety. 

It is " the fast school " that vitiates the tone, undermines 
the character, and corrupts the whole atmosphere, till it 
becomes really a matter of less importance whether the 
guilt be gross and actual, or only in the heart, mind, soul 
— indeed, in the whole nature. The tongue, true to its 
nature, cannot help being tell-tale, and its follies and am- 
biguities tell of the change within long before there is an 
opportunity to carry will into deed. Those who have 
vacant minds, who spend their lives in a world of foolish 
amusements and frivolous gayety, in a succession of flirta- 
tions, in running after pleasure wherever and with whom- 
soever it can be found, amid doubtful associations, at places 
and in circumstances where there cannot be but danger 
and contamination, will find, should the last barrier give 
way, that the downward career of immorality beats the 
rolling stone of Sisyphus. 

It is vain to ask how such a state of things exists. The 
mode of life has its attractions, and they are potent to cer- 
tain natures. There is no reasoning against the baser 
instincts and the lower tastes. They must and will claim 
their way, and will sway a part of the world. 

But, although it may be vain to inquire how such a state 
of things as this is brought about, which English and 



the mother's influence. 363 

American journalists have discussed so freely, it may not 
be wholly vain to search for some remedy. 

This remedy is suggested by more than one writer on 
the instruction and education of the young. Chancellor 
Kent says, Without some preparation made in youth for 
the sequel of life, children of all conditions would prob- 
ably become idle and vicious when they grow up, from want 
of good instruction and habits, and the means of subsist- 
ence, or from want of rational and useful occupations. A 
parent who sends his son into the world without educating 
him in some art, science, profession, or business, does great 
injury to mankind, as well as to his son and his own fam- 
ily, for he defrauds the community of a useful citizen, and 
bequeaths to it a nuisance. This parental duty is strongly 
inculcated by the writers on natural law. Solon was so 
deeply impressed with the force of the obligation, that he 
even excused the children of Athens from maintaining their 
parents, if they had neglected to train them up to some art 
or trade. The parent who trains his child for some 
special occupation, and who at the same time is able to 
inspire in him genuine self-respect, that corner-stone for 
the great work of life — for there is no work like that of 
self-education — has done his share tow T ard contributing a 
useful citizen, instead of a nuisance, to the ranks of hu- 
manity. Another writer upon the education and training 
of girls says, The one thing needed to give us a gener- 
ation of modest, chaste gentlewomen in our daughters is 
— mothers. Mothers who know their business, and who 
do it ; mothers who have the sense to see that there is a 
time in a young woman's life, as in a man's, when animal 
spirit, or excess of vitality, needs outlet ; mothers who can 
guide their daughters through this strait in all purity, en- 
lightening them as to the nature of evil, and instructing 
them in that positive good which crowds out evil. Why 



364 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

is it that we sometimes find lovely daughters of lovely 
mothers, who have been guarded carefully by all the cir- 
cumstances of their lives from temptation and trial, brought 
up in the midst of pure influences, early taught by precept 
and example the fear of God, and the happiness that comes 
from doing good, have yet sunk away before temptation, 
and become corrupted and wretched? Is it not because 
there is no strength to the character, no power to resist 
evil, no assurance of continuance in well-doing, where the 
work of self-discipline and self-education, begun by the 
mother, has not been continued by the daughter? It is 
of the utmost importance for her child's moral, spiritual, 
and temporal welfare, that the mother should begin this 
work with correct ideas as to the relations of innocence and 
virtue ; for with many there is a great confusion as to the 
meaning of these words. The literal meaning of virtue is 
strength, efficacy, power. It should be the mother's object 
to educe strength of character, and then virtue becomes easy. 
To ignore the existence of sin, error, misery, is in reality to 
encourage and to increase them. It is like walking upon 
thinly crusted lava, or upon treacherous ice, certain to pre- 
vent saving others, ready indeed to ingulf all who trust 
to it. In this chapter will be found the opinions of a writer 
on this subject, who nearly twenty years ago wrote with an 
earnestness which must have been appreciated then, and a 
discernment which is needed to be shared by all parents now, 
who seek to discriminate and choose for their children the 
proper books for them to read, the proper companions for 
them to have, and the proper habits for them to acquire. 

A Persian ambassador asked the wife of Leonidas why 
they paid such honors to the women at Lacedsemonia. u It 
is," replied she, " because they have entirely the forming 
of the men." But great as are the responsibilities of a 
mother, she must not be left to bear all the blame when the 



THE INFLUENCE OF BOOKS. 365 

characters of her children have not developed as she has en- 
deavored to form them. Much depends, as we have seen, 
upon transmitted qualities of mind and heart, and upon the 
temperament of the child, and much also depends upon the 
example of the persons with whom they are thrown, and 
the influence of the books which they are permitted to read. 
Judicious mothers who study the inherited peculiarities 
and the temperaments of their children, who guard them 
from associates whose influence is evil, who will not permit 
their daughters to read books which have not first been 
overlooked, will be better able to train up their children in 
the way they should go, than are those who give no thought 
to such subjects. 

Reverend Morgan Dix, S.T. D., in an essay entitled, 
u Sensation Romances and Xovel Poison," attributes the 
deterioration of individual character, and the poisoning of 
society, which are conspicuous among the signs of the times, 
to indiscriminate novel reading. A glance at the plots of 
some of the most popular novels of the day, he tells us, 
shows little but crudities, follies, and social frauds, not held 
up for the reprobation they merit, but to demonstrate that 
to be quiet, decent, and mannerly, is to be stupid and dull; 
that if you wish to be thought interesting and brilliant, 
you must be fast and free ; that it is natural and right to 
do the meanest and most odious things, and that every one 
would do them if placed under like circumstances; that it 
is high-toned and high-spirited to be treacherous and un- 
controllable ; that so long as persons do not utterly throw 
themselves away, they may love whom they please ; that 
husbands and wives are of all persons the least to each 
other ; that a disorderly passion has more depth, beauty, 
and sacred ness in it than a solemn vow at God's altar; 
that the state of holy matrimony is a tyranny of bondage, 
under which to chafe is no sin. The result of all this, he 



366 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

continues, is unfortunately too plain and most evident in 
the manners of the young women of the period. There can 
be no doubt that the standard of womanhood is declining. 
How could it be otherwise ? Girls can in no way be more 
certainly destroyed, than by giving them a false idea of 
life ; by perverting their moral sense by weaving a web 
of unreality about them ; by taking from them the right 
idea of duty, loyalty, and honor; by making them see 
everything in a false light, till they are filled with fantastic 
notions, and have lost the habit of simplicity and sincerity. 
With such models as these before them, and with no one 
to tell them what abominable characters they are, it is 
natural that they should imitate what they have learned to 
admire, and that when they come to act their part in life, 
they do as the light women do in their favorite stories. . . . 
The slow deterioration in manners and morals is going on 
among the lowly and the high, in the homes of elegance 
and fashion, in the apartments of the working classes in 
town, in the cottages and farmhouses from which the vicious 

population of the city is fed In multitudes of 

cases, perhaps in the greater part of them, the household 
sorrow and the household wreck may be traced to the work- 
ing of a poison distilled into the unhappy family through 
a literature which ought to be driven like offscourings 
from every respectable library, and every circle of honest 
people. 

Vincent Murray, writing in the " Contemporary Re- 
view/' says that the chief caterers if not consumers' in this 
line, are women, closing his paper with the assertion that 
the society which reads and encourages such literature is a 
" whited sepulchre/' which, if it be not speedily cleansed 
by the joint effort of pure men and women, will breed a 
pestilence so foul as to poison the very life-blood of the 
nation. 



THE INFLUENCE OF BOOKS. 367 

Dr. Dix, commenting upon this, says : The same may- 
be said of our own people, and such joint effort to save the 
young was never more needed than now. What we ought 
to aim at is the forming and deepening a sense of moral re- 
sponsibility. The characteristic vice of our time is irre- 
sponsible self-will. It ought to be attacked everywhere, 
with all the power that can be brought to bear on it. 
Parents should be instructed that they are directly respon- 
sible to God and the Church for the training of their chil- 
dren ; and children must be made to understand that read- 
ing bad books is as dangerous as keeping bad company, or 
lying, stealing, or any kind of self-abuse. 

This essay of Dr. Dix should be not lightly skimmed 
over, but studied by parents who would know what class 
of novels to put into the hands of their daughters, and what 
to withhold. Very different is his discriminating criticism 
from much of that which we see at the present time. He 
draws the line between those novels which expose these 
"social frauds," for the purpose of drawing the attention 
of a society that ignores them to their inevitable conse- 
quences, and those that drag such scenes in to excite an 
ill-regulated appetite in the reader. There are some critics 
who would prohibit an author from exposing in fit language 
a class of abuses or vices known to be prevalent, but which 
divers interested persons would, for obvious reasons, rather 
not hear mentioned. Such a prohibition amounts to saying 
that when offenders go to certain lengths in criminality, 
the very foulness of their sins should exempt them from 
punishment; and it makes both author and critic abet- 
tors of the evils of which they know, but are afraid to di- 
vulge, on the principle, invitat culpam qui peccatum prceterit. 
One of the highest functions of the writer is to point out 
the awful consequences of human error, and to trace some 
fault, for which, maybe, the world is too indulgent, from 



368 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

its first careless commission to its tragical results. That 
was the design of the earliest and greatest masters of 
fiction, says Grenville Murray. 

When men or women commit crimes and to all seem- 
ing remain prosperous and happy, retaining the world's 
esteem, the real truth about them should be told. It should 
be explained by what tears of blood and anguish they re- 
deemed themselves, and by what terrible punishments they 
w T ere visited in secret. King David's history reveals to us 
the problems of a life, where, oftentimes, the highest suffer 
most, the noblest wander farthest. No man could be so 
shaken as King David was with the jars and shocks of 
nature and life, exactly because no man living could be so 
entranced with her harmonies. Small tricks and follies 
are of little consequence to mankind ; but drama, pathos, 
and instruction begin where weak and sometimes good 
men or women commit heinous offences, as in the terrible 
story of Royal Israel and the warrior, whom he sent to 
death because his wife was very beautiful to look upon, 
and in other Bible records of human error, written for our 
instruction and consolation. If the world has slowly 
grown better than it was in bygone centuries, we owe it 
much to the fact that authors of the past have scattered 
the truth fearlessly ; therefore it yielded a harvest, and 
sowers must not cease to scatter seed if they would have 
the earth go on bearing fruits of increase. 

The best moral training is not that which diligently shuts 
out all knowledge of the world, but that which teaches 
self-control, ability to resist evil and cleave to the good, to 
fight and overcome temptation, and to be actively virtuous. 
Vices laid open to the public cautery are in a much better 
condition for being cured than those which are permitted 
to fester in semi-secrecy for personal or class considerations. 

Says an American journalist: The only possible safe- 



THE INFLUENCE OF BOOKS. 369 

guard for evil practices is secrecy. So long as public at- 
tention can be diverted from them they flourish with im- 
punity ; but the moment they become notorious, shame 
sets up an effectual barrier to keep away those who are not 
hopelessly perverted. 

The London " Saturday Review" comments as follows 
upon a recent divorce case in fashionable society in London : 
There are some things which everybody sees, but which 
there is a general reluctance to speak about until some 
kind of explosion occurs and compels attention. For some 
time past, for instance, there has been visible in English 
society a tendency to increasing freedom of manners and a 
relaxation of those prudent restraints on giddiness or for- 
wardness which used to be supposed to be an indispensable 
protection to all modest women. We have ourselves re- 
peatedly called attention to it, and urged that the spread 
of habits of dangerous familiarity ought to be closely 
watched, and some check placed by social influence on the 
introduction of novelties of this kind, all tending in one 
direction. It would appear, however, that the departure 
from old-fashioned tradition of propriety is growing still 
more marked, and that a system of social intercourse is 
being gradually established, under which all the once recog- 
nized rules of decent behavior are completely set at naught. 

Notwithstanding these strictures upon the state of society 
in London, this "Review" not long since accused an English 
novelist of want of patriotism, because she depicted scenes 
that reflected upon English society. Must the novelist be 
silent from patriotic motives, and the journalist be allowed 
to speak in such plain terms ? The novelist in whose pen 
lies the power to describe the downward road from its 
first to its last step, must she, for " personal or class con- 
siderations," hold back the lessons which romance can be 

made to convey to the minds of the voung? If she has 

24. 



370 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the true inspiration, and if convinced that God has given 
her "the one talent 7 ' to use, and not to fold away in a 
napkin, she will say with Dr. Cummings : "Were news- 
papers more able than the ' Saturday Review ' to attack any 
book I write, and any sentiment I hold, I shall not be 
moved a hair's breadth from a course which I believe to 
be dutiful to man and right in the sight of God." 

We all know that in no land is domestic life purer than 
in our own ; that it is the fast school here, as elsewhere, 
that introduces into it its dangerous elements. As the 
"London Times" says," It is vitiating the tone, undermin- 
ing the character, and corrupting the whole atmosphere of 
society." Up to the present time we have been spared in 
America (in our most refined and highly cultivated circles 
at least) such disgusting scandals as London high life has 
from time to time disclosed : but those "fast" women 
who have cast discredit upon American society at home 
and abroad need all the checks that can be imposed upon 
them, to prevent our divorce courts from emulating those 
of England in the offensive details of their cases. 

To quote again from the " Saturday Review" article: 
" Suspicion must necessarily be part of the penal system of 
society, and it is exercised in rightful defence. It might 
be difficult or impossible to secure conclusive evidence of a 
particular offence, such as would be necessary for judicial 
purposes, but society has a right to judge from appearances, 
and to place uuder a ban those who try to break down 
the barriers of propriety." 

A writer in the "New York Tribune" says, in an edito- 
rial: "There is not a fashionable circle, not a town or vil- 
lage, in which the records of our domestic life do not bear 
evidence of the debasing influences of this authorized, uni- 
versal custom of flirtation before marriage, and Platonic 
friendship after. Here is the secret of indifference of wives 



THE INFLUENCE OP BOOKS. 371 

and husbands, of the neglect of their children, of the reck- 
less excitement by which they try to forget their bondage, 
and the adultery suits by which they end it." 

The feeling with many seems to be that these evils are, 
on the whole, inevitable ; or, if not, that we can mend so 
very little of them that it is wisest to leave them alone 
altogether, lest, like certain sewers, "the more you stir 
them, the more they smell." 

I should answer in all courtesy and humility, " If we 
think that things are going all right, must we not have a 
most beggarly conception of what going right means? 
And if things are not going right, can it be anything but 
good for us to see that they are not going right? Can 
truth and fact harm any human being ? I shall not be- 
lieve so, as long as I have a Bible wherein to believe," 
says the Rev. Charles Kingsley. 

Thus journalists and divines are drawing attention to 
needed reforms. They are not seeking reformation in 
individual cases any more than does the author ; but both 
journalist and novelist may try to lead men and women of 
influence to exert themselves to raise society to the highest 
possible standard of sound morals and good manners. At 
least, attention thus drawn to these evils has a tendency to 
place a check upon those whose pernicious examples in- 
fluence the young and giddy ; too often leading them astray 
before their judgment is sufficiently matured to shadow 
forth to them the inevitable end of the path they have 
chosen. As a stone, thoughtlessly thrown into a pool of 
water, breaks its placid surface into ever-widening circles, 
so one example may influence for good or for evil the 
moral condition of a whole community. If journalists are 
allowed to draw attention to this general relaxing of social 
restraints, may not novelists depict the evils that arise 
from loveless marriages, showing life as it is when entered 



372 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

upon by those in whom exist that sympathy and congeni- 
ality which is so essential in the close companionship of 
married life ? — and last, but not least, may they not strive 
to awaken to a sense of their duties those who, while they 
hold the fast school in abhorrence, are trying to ignore its 
existence, asserting that the least that is said about it the 
better? 

Writers who treat these subjects require both skill and 
moral courage : skill to write with delicacy of the coarse- 
ness with which they deal, and moral courage to face the 
sneers, ridicule, prejudices, and misrepresentations that 
they will encounter. "This man blasphemes, this man is 
immoral," is what the world says of those who utter un- 
welcome truths in unwilling ears. 

The fast school is a vulgar school. Those who portray 
its scenes cannot hope to escape the charge of vulgarity 
from the ignorant, the prejudiced, the narrow-minded, and 
from all those who are not able to understand that when 
a writer has great truths to develop he must choose such 
characters as will best serve his ends, although they may 
not be such as predominate in real life. He cannot show up 
folly and worse than folly by depicting the characters of 
the wise and good. He will not create ideal men and 
women to show us what they ought to be, but he will 
show us what they really are ; how they struggle with 
temptation, overcoming it, or being overcome by it, as the 
case may be ; no creature all saint, no creature all sinner ; 
but all free agents, each left to the work of forming its 
own character and accomplishing its own destiny. 

" Never by lapse of time, the soul defaced by crimo, 
Into its former self returns again ; 
For every guilty deed holds in itself the seed 
Of retribution and undying pain." 

"Will not the young girl who still holds her fate in her 



THE INFLUENCE OF BOOKS. 373 

own keeping, pause, and take into consideration what she 
may become if she treads down in a loveless marriage the 
holiest instinct of a woman's heart, when she sees how the 
revolting discipline of a marriage where there is no love 
upon the woman's side, eats away the health of her moral 
life as decay eats the heart of some bud before it has blos- 
somed into a rose ? 

" We have no kind of sympathy," says the " Saturday 
Review," " with the woes of young women who sell them- 
selves to hateful husbands." And yet there are no woes 
that should receive more compassion than those of the 
young girl who, knowing nothing of the sacred mystery 
of her being, sells herself, or is sold by her parents, to a 
" hateful husband," thus entering upon that demoralizing 
life which fits her to fill the place of one more fast woman 
in society. The ever increasing frequency of these sacri- 
fices, says the " London World," makes it far more to be 
wondered at that so many women are virtuous than that 
a very few should go astray. 

Upon this subject, a clergyman of the Church of Eng- 
land writes : 

"God looks down upon no baser deed on this earth 
than such a sacrifice, when Christian parents make their 
children pass through the fire to Moloch, and go about in 
society, enraptured with their success ; thinking, when the 
sale of the slave is over, that they have accomplished the 
greatest good, when, in reality, they have murdered a soul, 
and sown, it may be, the first seed of their daughter's dis- 
honor. She is told that she will have all things she 
needs — wealth, position, luxury, society, at her feet — that 
these things will heal the hurt her honor feels ; these will 
console her for the loss of the freedom of the heart; these 
will supply her with a higher happiness than that which 
comes of mutual respect and mutual love in marriage. If 



374 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

betrayed, by weakness or through terror, any poor soul 
has taken up this degradation, and wakes too late to find 
that she has a soul and a heart, let her not hope to kill 
her pain in desperate pleasure, nor allow scorn of life to 
master her, nor give up her duties because every step she 
makes in them is marked by blood." Here is a broad field 
for novelists to exercise their powers in. Here lie shoals 
and rocks of life, where, if beacon lights are placed in 
time to warn the ignorant of danger, many shipwrecks 
may be prevented, many fair and richly-freighted barks 
be saved. Still, where mothers are vigilant, where duty 
is more to them than ambition, the novelist's warnings 
may not be needed, and yet such mothers are always quick 
to seek aid from outside influences, realizing the truth of a 
remark made by a distinguished French mother of a by- 
gone century, who said : " Whatever care is used in the 
education of children, it is still too little to answer the 
end." After all, the mother only lays the foundation for 
the hourly work of self-improvement which alone can 
build up a fair and perfect structure of character; and 
although she may be often disheartened and well-nigh dis- 
couraged in her labor of love and duty, she should remem- 
ber the promise, " Train up a child in the way he should 
go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." The 
promise is not given that his conduct will always be in his 
youth as exemplary as she would desire it to be; but when 
he arrives at the age that character becomes symmetrical 
(if the material is good and it has been built up aright), 
then, to use a worn-out simile, his virtues will be found 
locking into each other like the stones of an arch, in which 
each takes its relative position, and all are held in place 
by the keystone of duty, thus making good to the mother 
the promise of Holy Writ. 

" I shall never forget," said Kant, in his old age, " that 



THE INFLUENCE OF BOOKS. 375 

it was my mother who caused to fructify the good which 
is in my soul." 

Cuvier, it is said, attributed to his mother all the pleas- 
ure of his studies and the glory of his discoveries. " I 
used to draw under her superintendence, and read aloud 
books of history and general literature. It is thus that 
she developed in me that love of reading and that curiosity 
for all things which were the spring of my life." 

Byron's mother, a woman full of caprice and pride, 
whose narrow mind was only expanded by vanity, hatred, 
and revenge, who piteously made a jest of the natural in- 
firmity of her child, ingrafted in his heart her corrosive 
passions, and made his life a curse to himself and to others, 
despite his genius. 

Lamartine, over whose cradle was shed the light of a 
tender mother's love, under her tuition developed that 
genius (a spark of which is said to be implanted in every 
soul) until it resembled incense, the perfumes of which 
are diffused over the earth, but which burns only for 
heaven. Only mothers (and women with mother-hearts) 
possess the power of inspiring that love of virtue and 
knowledge which, when once established in the soul, 
enables a man to " mould his own material, quarry his 
own nature, and make his own character " what it should 
be ; for this is a work that no one can do for him. 

It is hard for the mother, as well as for her older chil- 
dren, when, with a large family, nursery duties prevent 
her from continuing that degree of watchful care which 
they have had in their childhood, just at the age when 
character is moulded like wax by the shaping power of 
thought and example. But her babes even are in less 
danger from neglect than are those of her children whose 
minds are developing as rapidly as exotics in a hot-house. 
At this age a taste is easily cultivated for works on natural 



376 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

science and for history, as well as for those juvenile books 
that teach important lessons — such as are found in the 
works of Mrs. Edgeworth, Mrs. Child, Miss Yonge, and 
in many other books written for the young. If mothers 
could realize the influence which the companionship of 
books exerts in youth upon the tastes and the habits of 
their children, they would choose for them such as would 
both interest and instruct, before their children's minds 
have become vitiated by works of an unhealthy nature and 
stories of a sensational order. A taste for these once ac- 
quired, the task of a Hercules would have to be accom- 
plished to bring back the mind to its virgin state. The 
poison imbibed from books works all the more surely be- 
cause it works secretly ; so that the influence of bad books 
may be even greater than the influence of bad associates. 
The mother has it in her power to make those books that 
her riper judgment selects as suitable, the companions and 
friends of her children, and to impress upon them the 
truths found in their pages by conversing with them 
about the moral lessons or the intellectual instruction that 
they contain. Children are always asking questions with 
regard to everything that they see or hear, and the patient 
mother who answers these questions to the best of her abil- 
ity, seeking information to impart to them when their 
questions are beyond the reach of her capacity to answer, 
will reap a rich reward in their superior intelligence and 
in their thirst for knowledge — a thirst which, when >nce 
aroused in the human soul, is never quenched. It does 
not seem to occur to some minds that parents owe any 
other duties to their children than to send them to good 
schools and to see that they are properly clothed and fed. 
Their morals and their manners are left to their nursery- 
maids, possibly, for the mothers who best fulfil their duties 
in these respects are quite as often found among those who 



THE INFLUENCE OF BOOKS. 377 

cannot afford to keep a maid. Sometimes children are 
trusted to choose their own associates ; or mothers choose 
for them, in reference toward position in society more than 
in regard to the best culture of mind and heart and man- 
ners. 

It is hard to escape being influenced by the opinions of 
society, and it is not well to be too independent of them 
in many particulars ; but those who have a high ideal in 
character to attain, learn to care only for the judgment of 
those whose lives and conversation illustrate that ideal. 
In disregarding the opinions of the purely worldly, mothers 
can best cultivate that true spirit of independence which 
enables them to choose what is best for the highest devel- 
opment of their children, instead of with reference only to 
external advantages. In this way, society expands and 
exalts the powers, instead of dwarfing and degrading them. 
A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Rudeness, vul- 
garity, and all evil, are as contagious for the young as are 
the whooping-cough and the measles, and their effects are 
much more lasting. Therefore it is necessary to guard 
the child, as far as is possible, from all approaches of 
either; so that the careful mother keeps a vigilant eye 
upon the associates of her children, as well as upon the 
books they read, until their tastes and their habits have 
been formed in such matters, thus preserving the purity 
and innocence of childhood untainted, up to that period 
when the ignorance of evil is no longer desirable, but on 
the contrary, is fraught with danger. Then the prudent 
mother will instruct her children where the pitfalls and 
the quicksands of life lie; she will enlighten them as to 
the nature of evil, showing them how stealthily it ap- 
proaches, clothed in alluring garb, and wooing with seduc- 
tive smiles. Which will be in the most danger, the youth 
who, walking in a thicket of roses, discovers for himself 



378 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the precipice that borders one side of it, concealed from 
sight by the beautiful flowers that grow along its very- 
brink, or the one who knows from the start that the preci- 
pice is there, and that only one step from the roses lie 
coiled the serpents of sin and remorse ? Now comes the 
period when the mother may be aided by works of fiction 
which teach that our earthly passions are the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil; and that, according as the 
fruit is gathered from this tree, will be the life or the death 
of the spiritual nature of her children. Innocence is not 
virtue. Innocence is weak ; virtue is strong. The strength 
of virtue lies in its power to resist and endure; the weak- 
ness of innocence is in its ignorance; therefore, the change 
from ignorant youthful innocence to one of enlightened 
manly or womanly virtue, is one that mothers should 
hasten, instead of retarding, when the eyes of their chil- 
dren have been turned toward the alluring fruit of the 
tree of life ; then, when the tempter comes offering this 
fruit for their use, they will be able to discern the evil from 
the good; for the fruit of the knowledge of evil, and the 
fruit of the knowledge of good, grow together side by side, 
on the same tree. Merely to deny improper books is not 
enough. Something must be given in place of them, or 
the craving will continue, and the child will be very 
apt to gratify its appetite in secret. Books which teach 
that sin and sorrow are God's divinely appointed apostles 
to mankind ; that no one is secure from temptation, but 
rather that virtue is tested by it as gold by the refiner's 
fire ; that no love which is properly controlled but may be 
made the means of one's own spiritual advancement; that 
innocence is not virtue ; that ignorance is cruelly danger- 
ous ; that the knowledge of evil is essential to all progress 
as well as to all virtue of the highest. type, — such are the 
books that many youth of the present day need to warn 



TUE INFLUENCE OF BOOKS. 379 

them of the rapids toward which they are tending, — 
the whirlpool of unregulated passion in wdnch so many 
barks go down. 

There are some careful and conscientious mothers, who, 
watching the gradual change from infancy and childhood 
to youth and maturity, and who, marking how often addi- 
tional knowledge is accompanied by additional sin, wish 
that their children's ignorance of evil might be prolonged, 
and are inclined to fancy that knowledge itself is but a 
doubtful blessing. This idea proceeds rather from a neg- 
ative hatred of evil than from a positive love of good, and 
its error lies in mistaking innocence for virtue. 

Innocence is lovely in the. child, because in harmony 
with its nature; but our path in life is not backward but 
onward, and virtue can never be the offspring of mere in- 
nocence. If we are to progress in the knowledge of good, 
we must also progress in the knowledge of evil. Every 
experience of evil brings its own temptation, and according 
to the degree in which the evil is recognized and the temp- 
tations resisted, will be the value of the character into 
which the individual will develop. Innocence may be 
beautiful, but can never be strong, while the whole essence 
of virtue lies in its strength to resist and power to endure. 
If the innocence of childhood be replaced by the frm prin- 
ciples of integrity and honor, the loss will be really a great 
gain. It is only where the knowledge of evil is unattended 
by appreciation of its nature, where temptations are yielded 
to and not resisted, that we are induced to grieve over the 
departure of that innocence which was so beautiful in earlier 
years. 

It is not so much the knowledge of evil that is to be 
feared as the ignorance of positive good to overcome it; 
not the advance of one part of our nature, but the failure 
to advance in the higher and nobler parts. As the stature 



£80 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

and power of the full-grown man is superior to that of the 
little child, so is the strength and energy of virtue superior 
to the innocence that only ignores the evil without having 
tasted the good. 

Knowledge, to be truly valuable, must be guided by 
wisdom, and the essence of all wisdom consists in discover- 
ing and obeying the laws of the Creator. This can render 
even the loss of innocence itself the means of developing 
our highest nature. The real danger to be feared for the 
rising generation, is not so much that they should learn 
about evil as that they should not learn about good. Pos- 
itive good will soon crowd out evil, while, if we could, by 
our utmost energies, simply guard the mind from all ap- 
proaches of sin, we should at the most only accomplish a 
negative work, which would fail in producing a virtuous 
character. Let mothers then be careful to sow the seeds 
of positive moral goodness, as well as to eradicate the 
weeds that will occupy the soil of every heart that is left 
uncultivated.* Planted thickly with the seeds of truth, 
integrity, self-denial, and love, a rich harvest of noble 
character will be yielded, while the utmost toil will fail to 
keep down the weeds of vice in the heart where positive 

* To all who have a purpose and a high hope in rearing their chil- 
dren, Harriet Martineau's little hook on "Household Education" 
will he found a wise and helpful counsellor, as well as possessing great 
interest. There is no discoursing about things in a vague, uncertain 
way. Nor are words spent in picking flaws without suggesting 
remedies. The difficulties in the case are always duly considered. 
Indeed, the whole hook is a study for any one having the care of 
children. One reading will not suffice. We like to think of the 
eager gratitude with which many a perplexed and anxious mother 
will turn its pages and glean therefrom not only comfort and en- 
couragement, but, what is still more to he desired, a clearer knowl- 
edge of her duty, and a more reasonable assurance that through 
patient endeavor she can yet become a better and truer mother than 
she has ever been. 



CHARACTER. 381 

virtues do not grow. And yet, as we have seen, character 
is not wholly dependent upon either instruction or training. 
It is the result of the use which each individual makes of 
the lessons of life. God will have deep-tilled soil, bearing 
such harvest as he shall sow for; whence, at autumn, we all 
take either our ripe sheaves or our worthless ones with us. 
Suffering, keen anguish of spirit, is the tax which intel- 
lect, or intelligence, or advanced mental culture must al- 
ways pay for its gains in the individual. We must endure 
much and go through bitter trials ere character is perfected. 
And what a rich treasure is a deep character, a fertile life. 
How instinctively we honor those who, in spheres infin- 
itely various, fulfil in fair measure sixty if not a hundred, 
thirty if not sixty fold, the hope of God in us! says the 
Rev. Joseph May. Who but loves to see in society those 
who live unselfishly to serve good aims; who rise above 
sensuality, and fashion, and frivolity; who look about for 
good deeds to do, whether humble or important; whose 
hands are ever busy at home or abroad ; whose hearts are 
ever tender to the next appeal ; who listen willingly and 
respond surely ; who take hold, not egotistically, not be- 
cause they live to manage, refusing machination, fearless 
of criticism, rebuffs, and ingratitude, unwearied and self- 
forgetful, doing such work as they can do quietly, simply, 
unpretentiously, for each good cause. 

Though suffering be the price of such a character, wel- 
come be the suffering. The world is the field where life's 
prizes are won. As Bushnell says: There are no fires that 
will melt out our drossy and corrupt particles like God's 
refining fires of duty and trial, living, as he sends us to 
live, in the open field of the world's sins and sorrows, its 
plausibilities and lies, its persecution, animosities, and 
fears, its eager delights and bitter wants. 

By our fruits we are known. A character, says Emer- 



382 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

son, is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza ; read it for- 
ward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. 
Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they 
communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and 
do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment; 
a breath that is stronger for good or for evil than any 
power that lies in mere words, though we preach sermons 
and make books of which there is no end. Character 
reveals itself in myriad ways, but most in the brotherly 
sympathy which we show our kind. The right which our 
fellow-men have to whatsoever aid our hands can afford, 
says the Rev. William H. Furness, is sacred and inalien- 
able, far beyond the right which we claim to the perishing 
possessions of the world, and is not to be denied by us, save 
to the wrong of our own souls. 



CHAPERONS. 383 



CHAPTER XIII. 

CHAPERONS — CUSTOMS— SOCIAL OBSERVANCES — SHOWY SU- 
PERFICIALITIES — HARVARD EXAMINATIONS — THOROUGH 
EDUCATION— HIGHER CULTURE OF WOMEN. 

"There is no civilized country in the world where so much license 
is permitted in the intercourse of young men and women as in the 
United States ; it gives to the foreigner travelling here a singular 
idea of American morality, and leads, for instance, to the production 
of such a play as ' Uncle Sam,' which presents a picture that may he 
exaggerated in most particulars, but which at the same time conveys 
a suggestion that if proper decorum were exhibited by the young 
people, the idea of such a play would not have entered the mind of its 
author. He knew that if he had seen young men and women acting 
toward each other in France as he had seen young Americans doing, 
he would reach a conclusion unfavorable to the purity of their rela- 
tions. 

* * * * * # 

" It is the personal contact of the man which does more to conquer 
the woman than his speech or his good looks. A statue of Praxiteles 
vivified with the soul of wit and original thought, standing away from 
her, must make slow progress toward her heart. Proximity in talk, 
where the words fall close to the ear, is effective. The affinities of 
nature are revealed in the power of the touch. The nobler part of 
man looks upward, and the baser downward ; the aspirations of the 
soul would wing their flight to the clouds, but the inclinations of the 
body keep them to the earth. It is for this that the young woman 
must be safe-guarded against the weaknesses of this superior kind of 
animal — man. 

" It has been said that our young men can safely be trusted not to 
take advantage of long tete-a-tetes with young women to do anything 
they would not do in presence of the mothers; but it is better not to 
have too much confidence in masculine rectitude under such circum- 
stances. It is well fur the young woman that the man is educated as 
her social protector, for if he were not, she would be morally in a 
lower scale than she is to-day ; he is not always a social protector, and 
the family cannot afford to take the risk of his being a black sheep. 



384 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

" According to Arabic law the man is not held accountable for per- 
suading the woman to leave the straight path, it being regarded as 
the duty of the woman herself and her family to take care and defend 
her from his pursuit, he being considered as aggressive by nature and 
she repressive. There is a little hint conveyed in this Oriental law 
which should not be lost on mothers with grown-up daughters. 
****** 

" But in most cases the mothers are more to blame, perhaps, than 
the young people, who are inexperienced and drawn together by an 
affinity which belongs to all healthy natures in the vigor of life. It 
can hardly be expected of them to pursue the straight path without 
the healthful restraints and good counsel which a mother alone can 
give, and it is clearly the duty of the mother to command as well as 
to teach, to make of her daughter her constant companion and friend, 
so that she may confide to her secrets which in the absence of confes- 
sion and advice, often lead to fatal results. The habit so common 
among our girls to seek this close companionship in girls of their own 
age, or young married women, and to stand, in a measure, aloof from 
the mother, is unfortunate, for, in proportion as the daughter culti- 
vates such intimacies, she withdraws herself from her mother and 
from home influences." — Chaperons for the Girls, by Rhodes. 

The license existing and increasing in many circles of 
American society has caused this age to be not inappro- 
priately termed " the reign of shoddy/' for it is at the 
door of uncultivated families, possessing speedily acquired 
wealth, that the responsibility of this state of things lies. 

Those who seek to maintain the customs of past genera- 
tions in their training and teachings, are looked upon as 
eccentric, to use the mildest term; while those who adopt 
innovations which are really sensible ones, and long used 
in foreign society for the convenience of its members, are 
stigmatized as • ' reformers," and treated as such. In addi- 
tion, young people find parties without the restraining 
presence of dowagers such an attractive innovation upon 
old-school customs, that the dowager is no longer consid- 
ered a necessary institution in some of our circles of society. 

Gatherings organized in this manner lose, however, the 



customs. 385 

charm depending upon the contact of various ages ; and 
youth, uncontrolled and paramount, becomes regardless of 
the pleasure of others, pushing aside, and often without 
the least restraint, whatever stands in its way. 

A lady was recently asked if she allowed her daughters 
to accept invitations which were not extended to herself. 
"It is quite contrary to all my ideas of propriety; but I 
find that I must take my choice between excluding them 
from society or allowing them to go with some young mar- 
ried friend ; for old ladies are very seldom invited in these 
days, was the answer." 

The laxity of morals and the freedom of manners which 
are declared to be characteristics of our age, are attributed 
by many to the fact that young girls are allowed so much 
more liberty than was formerly thought respectable ; and 
physicians and writers are now drawing attention to some 
of the ways in which this liberty has been abused, with 
varying results. 

One of these results, in its effect on society, is shown in 
the conduct and manners of some of our young men in the 
society of women. There is a want of respect which is painful 
to witness, and no less painful is it to listen to the comments 
made by them upon womanhood in general. They seem to 
forget that they reflect upon their mothers and sisters in giv- 
ing utterance to such sweeping assertions of disbelief in cor- 
rectness of principles and purity of life. " If we would save 
the manners and the morals of the country, our women 
must have a higher tone," says a journalist, and he is right. 
Even those young men who have been taught to respect 
all who are worthy of respect without regard to worldly 
position, and to observe the little courtesies of every-day 
life, become careless after associating with those girls and 
women who hold these lax ideas, and who encourage instead 
of condemning the license. " I like the cut of that woman's 

25 



386 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

jib," said a gentleman to a lady once in a ball-room. The 
lady answered, " Why, yon speak of a woman with no more 
respect than yon would of a ship." 

Her companion frankly thanked her for her reproof, 
adding, "If all ladies were like yourself, men would not 
fall into such a beastly way of talking.' 7 It is this neglect 
to show disapproval of coarse remarks and offensive habits 
which has caused our women to be held responsible for the 
bad manners of men and the "tendency to rowdyism" 
which, it is said, prevails in this generation, and which is 
a growing social blot in English as well as in American 
society. If all ladies were to follow the example given, 
and never pass over without some notice (though only by 
raising the eyebrows) any ungentlemanly speech or con- 
duct, we should soon hear of a change for the better, for 
man is most unfortunately an animal whose tendencies are 
downward when deprived of the beneficial corrective influ- 
ence of refined and pure-minded women. Many instances 
could be given of the remissness of men in society, English 
as well as American men, which would startle cultivated 
persons. Two, however, will suffice to show the different 
courses pursued by young men in the highest strata of 
fashionable society in New York, one having been trained 
to a strict observance of these forms, the other belonging to 
a family which considered such forms as of no importance. 

At a ball in New York, a gentleman said to the young 
lady to whom he w r as indebted for his invitation to the 
house of her parents, "Will you kindly introduce me to 
your father and mother?" She replied, "Don't give your- 
self that trouble ; it is not of the slightest consequence, I 
assure you; it is my ball." The gentleman answered, " I 
do not look upon the introduction as a trouble, but as a 
pleasure. My self-respect, as well as my respect for you 
and your parents, makes the introduction necessary." He 



SOCIAL OBSERVANCES. 387 

spoke so firmly that he carried his point and was introduced. 
In the other case, the young man was invited (by the re- 
quest of a common acquaintance) to an entertainment 
given by a New York lady in Newport. Afterwards he 
was asked if he knew this lady. He answered, a No, I do 
not know her. I was at her ball the other evening, but I 
avoided an introduction." Rudolf Harfthal's reply to the 
Earl who "had not self-respect to be a gentleman" is 
again suggested. 

To such a level must society fall, where " fast" men and 
women and untrained boys and girls are dominant ; but 
as yet such a state of things finds no support nor sympathy 
from those whose opinions are in any way likely to in- 
fluence its general tone. It is to prevent the headway of 
this class that writers are turning their attention to the 
manners of young people, and that mothers are counselled 
to secure their daughters as far as possible from such in- 
fluences. There may be some who are inclined to think 
that the subject of 'manners is receiving too much atten- 
tion from those who call it "a question of the day," but 
such should bear in mind that we must guard the manners, 
if for no other reason than to protect the morals. 

A few social observances, some of which we most need 
to be reminded of, from time to time, are here recapitu- 
lated. 

Persons who accept invitations to stop at the houses of 
friends or acquaintances, either in their city homes or at 
their country seats, should try to hold themselves at the 
disposal of those whom they are visiting. If they propose 
to you to ride, to drive, or walk, you should acquiesce as 
far as your strength will allow, and do your best to seem 
pleased by the efforts made to entertain you. As a rule, 
host and guest are quite independent cf each other from 
breakfast until lunch. After that meal the guest is 



388 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

bound to make himself as agreeable as he can to the com- 
pany, and to behave in all respects as if he were a visitor. 
If anything goes wrong during the visit, one should seem 
not to see it. If children are fractious, no remarks con- 
cerning their conduct must be made. Your friend's 
friends may be such as you do not care to be intimate 
with, but persons possessing tact can always keep people at 
a distance without hurting their feelings. There is a tacit 
confidence reposed in all guests, and the greatest delicacy 
is required in order to keep it inviolate. 

A guest should always ascertain what are the usual 
hours of rising, taking meals, and retiring, and then con- 
form scrupulously to them. These hours are sometimes 
given on a card, left in the guest-chambers. License is 
generally allowed for breakfast and lunch, the members 
of the family sitting down as soon as served, and not wait- 
ing for the delinquent. In large establishments, no incon- 
venience is experienced by delay ; those who come late are 
served as well as those who sit down with the family. In 
all well-regulated families in America, its members are 
early trained to be punctual at all the meals of the day. 
Visitors are bound by the laws of social intercourse, to 
conform in all respects to the habits of the house. To 
keep dinner waiting, to accept invitations without consult- 
ing your friend, to call upon the servant to do errands for 
you, or to wait upon you too much, and to keep the family 
up after the hours of retiring, are alike evidences of a want 
of thought and good breeding. Letters can be read at 
breakfast or at lunch, by asking permission to do so, but 
not at dinner. 

Whatever you may have remarked to the disadvantage 
of your friends, whilst partaking their hospitality, should 
never transpire through your means, neither while you are 
under their roof or afterwards. Speak only of what re- 



SOCIAL OBSERVANCES. 389 

dounds to their praise or credit. This feeling should be 
mutual between host aud guest ; whatever good is dis- 
covered in either may be commented upon, but let silence 
cover what is amiss. Guests should be careful about de- 
facing the marble of dressing-bureaus, mantles, and wash- 
stands, or the carpets and furniture covering, with the 
contents of the bottles in their dressing-cases ; and never 
allow their maids to use fine damask towels for wiping the 
dust from their walking-boots. Careful home training is 
shown by a due regard for these matters. 

When a lady offers to drive a gentleman in her phaeton, 
he should walk to her house if he accepts the invitation, 
unless the distance being great she should propose to call 
for him. Under such circumstances he will be on the 
watch, and, if possible, meet her on the way. 

A gentleman precedes a lady passing through a crowd; 
ladies precede gentlemen under ordinary circumstances. 

When two ladies meet in a doorway, and the younger 
steps back to give the elder precedence, should the latter 
motion her to precede, she should bow and pass in without 
hesitation . 

A gentleman in paying a morning or evening call rises 
successively upon the entrance of each lady in the family, 
but does not rise a second time if the ladies are passing in 
and out of the room, unless he has some reason for doing 
so. It is embarassing to a lady who is called out of the 
room frequently, to find a gentleman rising each time of 
her return. 

An invitation once given cannot be recalled, even from 
the best motives, without subjecting the one who recalls it 
to the charge of being either ignorant or regardless of all 
conventional rules of politeness. There is but one excep- 
tion to this rule, and that is when the invitation has been 
delivered to the wrong person. 



390 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

False delicacy once prevented a lady from sending for 
an invitation that had been sent by mistake, and the sender 
of the invitation was afterwards represented, first, as push- 
ing, in asking older residents, and next, as rude, in not 
inviting all the members of the large family, who had 
taken occasion to leave cards upon her when the one 
wrongly-delivered invitation had been received. 

To sit with your back to a person, without asking to be 
excused ; to lounge or yawn in the presence of others ; to 
sit or stand with the feet wide apart; to hum or sing in 
suppressed tones ; to stand with the arms " akimbo ;" to do 
anything, in short, which shows disrespect or selfishness, 
or indifference, is unequivocally vulgar, and betrays bad 
breeding. 

Servants who have not been well trained, nor fully in- 
structed as to their duties, often do their employers injus- 
tice. The neglect of servants frequently seems to give 
evidence of the incapacity of the master or mistress. Of 
course there are circumstances constantly occurring, emer- 
gencies in which the servant must use his or her own judg- 
ment ; but there are duties which are always the same. For 
example : A foreigner, going to the cloak-room, after an 
evening party, in one' of our principal cities, was told by 
the servant in attendance, " There's your ulster and crush 
hat, sir, all safe, under that big chair." The gentleman, 
taking this piece of information in good part, answered, 
" Thank you, you have taken very good care of them, I 
see. Now will you get them out for me, and help me on 
with them ?" The amused foreigner left with the impres- 
sion that this was an American custom, instead of an ex- 
ceptional case. On another occasion, a lady leaving a 
house in the rain, after an evening party, where the ser- 
vant in charge of the door had not provided umbrellas for 
the use of the guests, in going to their carriages, asked the 



SOCIAL OBSERVANCES. 391 

man if he could get her one. He said he could not. 
When this fact reached his mistress, she interrogated the 
man to know if it were possible he had been so remiss in 
his duties. This modern Casabianca replied, "I could 
not disobey your orders, madam, and you told me on no 
account whatever to leave the door." 

Never reprove servants or children before strangers. 

Slight inaccuracies in statements should not be corrected 
in the presence of others. 

Give your children, unless married, their Christian names 
only, or say " my daughter," or " my son," in speaking of 
them to any one excepting servants. 

Gentlemen lift their hats when passing ladies who are 
strangers, on staircases, in corridors, and entering public 
rooms. In riding, driving, or walking on public prome- 
nades, the salute in passing acquaintances is not necessary 
after the first time meeting the eyes. 

Gentlemen having occasion to pass ladies who are already 
seated in lecture and concert-rooms, theatres, and all other 
places, should beg pardon for disturbing them ; passing 
with their faces and never with their backs toward them. 
At garden parties, and at all assemblies held in the open 
air, gentlemen keep their hats on their heads. If draughts 
of cold air, or other causes, make it necessary for them to 
retain their hats on their heads, when in the presence of 
ladies within doors, they explain the necessity, and ask 
permission of the ladies whom they accompany. Formerly, 
all ladies arriving at dinners, parties, or balls, thought it 
necessary, upon entering the drawing-room, to take the 
arm of their husbands, or of some gentleman. Now the 
escort follows closely without offering his arm (where the 
former method is not looked upon as essential), as in the 
best society abroad. 

Madame MacMahon's treatment of Madame Simon is 



392 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

attributed to the following cause: "At the first dinner 
given at the Elysee, Madame Jules Simon, instead of en- 
tering the drawing-room in advance of her husband, and 
leaving him to follow behind, and occupy himself with not 
treading on the train of her gown, came in arm- in arm with 
him, as a grocer's wife might have done, and as no lady 
familiar with the present usages of polite society in Paris 
would ordinarily have done. From that moment she had 
the Marshal's wife for her avowed enemy." This absurd 
pretext for dislike was made only to cover the real cause, 
which was entirely a political one. 

Ladies in escorting each other never offer or take the 
arm. 

Avoid speaking of your birth, your travels, .and of all 
personal matters to those who may misunderstand you, and 
consider it boasting. When led to speak of them, do not 
dwell too long upon them, and do not speak boastfully. 
Never speak of absent persons who are not relatives or 
intimate friends by their Christian names or surnames, but 

always as Mr. , or Mrs. , or Miss . Above 

all, never name any one by the first letter of his name, as 

Mr. A . Married persons are sometimes guilty of this 

offence against good taste, when speaking or writing of 
each other. Give a foreigner his name in full when speak- 
ing of him, as Monsieur de Vigny ; never as Monsieur 
only. 

Acknowledge an invitation to stop with a friend, or any 
unusual attention, without delay. 

Never refuse a present unless under very exceptional 
circumstances. Unmarried ladies ought not to accept pres- 
ents from gentlemen who are neither related nor engaged 
to them. 

There is a rule to the effect that in presenting a book to 
a friend, the name of the one to whom you give it must not 



SOCIAL OBSERVANCES. 393 

be written in it unless requested. This rule is better hon- 
ored in the breach than in the observance, when the giver 
of the book is its author. " Our tokens of love," says Emer- 
son, " are for the most part barbarous, cold, and lifeless, be- 
cause they do not represent our life. The only gift, is a 
portion of thyself. Therefore, let the farmer give his corn • 
the miner, a gem ; the sailor, coral and shells ; the painter, 
his picture ; and the poet, his poem." For this reason, to 
persons of refined natures, whatever the artist, poet, or 
friend creates, takes added value as a part of themselves — 
part of their lives, as it were, having gone into it. People 
of the highest rank abroad will often accept with gratitude 
a bit of embroidery done by a friend ; a poem inscribed to 
them by an author ; a sketch executed by some protege ; 
who would not care for the most expensive bauble that 
was offered to them. 

Mere costliness does not constitnte the soul of a present, 
it is the kind feeling that it manifests, which gives it its 
value. Those who possess noble natures do not make gifts 
where they feel neither affection nor respect. Their gifts 
are bestowed out of the fulness of kind hearts. Ac- 
knowledge a present without delay, but do not quickly 
follow it up by a return. It is to be taken for granted that 
a gift is intended to afford pleasure to the recipient, not to 
be regarded as a mere question of investment or exchange. 
Never allude to a present which you have given, unless 
you have reason to fear it has not reached its destination. 

A good memory for names and faces, and a self-possessed 
manner, are necessary to all who wish to create a favorable 
impression in society. Those who see that they are not re- 
membered should have self-respect enough to recall atten- 
tion, where they have been the recipient of any courtesy ; a 
persistency in touching the hat when passing is a gentle- 
man's best form of calling himself to the recollection of a 



394 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

lady to whom he has been properly introduced, and evi- 
dences the best breeding. Only snobbish or pretentious 
people could misconstrue such a civility. One cannot be 
too civil to ladies and gentlemen, has passed into a proverb ; 
but it must be remembered that civilities, to make sure of 
their being appreciated, ought not to be extended to persons 
who belong to either a higher or a lower class of society. The 
former are warranted in looking upon you as pushing ; the 
latter are apt to consider you as patronizing them. 

A clear intonation, a well-chosen phraseology, a logical 
habit of thought, and correct accent, will prove of inesti- 
mable advantage to the young of both sexes on beginning 
life. 

Vulgarisms in conversation must be scrupulously guarded 
against. A well-educated and finely cultured person pro- 
claims himself by the simplicity and terseness of his 
language. It is those who are but half educated who in- 
dulge in fine language, and think it distinguished to use 
long words and high-sounding phrases. A hyperbolical 
way of speaking is mere flippancy and should be avoided. 
Such phrases as " awfully pretty," " immensely jolly," 
" abominably stupid," " disgustingly mean," are not in 
good form and should be avoided. Awkwardness of atti- 
tude does one the same ill service as awkwardness of speech. 
Lolling, gesticulating, fidgeting, handling an eye-glass or 
a watch-chain, and the like, give an air of gaucherie, and, 
so to say, take off a certain percentage from the respect of 
others. A lady who sits cross-legged or sideways on her 
chair, who stretches out her feet, who has a habit of hold- 
ing her chin, or twirling her ribbons, or fingering her 
buttons ; a man who lounges in his chair, or nurses his leg, 
or bites his nails, or caresses his foot crossed over on his 
knee, manifests an unmistakable want of good home 
training. Both should be quiet, easy and graceful in their 



SOCIAL OBSERVANCES. 395 

carriage, the gentleman, of course, being allowed more 
freedom than the lady. He has the privilege of sitting 
cross-legged, if privilege it be, but he should not sit with 
his knees far apart, nor with his foot on his knee, hand- 
ling it in the presence of ladies, as some of our swells have 
a fondness for doing. Is it that they have a woman's weak- 
ness for displaying a well-made foot, or do the silk stock- 
ings lure them into this exhibition of vanity? 

If an object is to be indicated you must move the whole 
hand, or the head, but never point with the finger. If one 
is obliged to touch his person, let it be with all the fingers 
and not with a single one, as is the habit of bumpkins. 

Coughing, sneezing, clearing the throat, etc., if done at 
all, must be done as quietly as possible. Snuffling, hawk- 
ing, expectorating, must never be performed in society. 
Pressing the thumbs or fingers firmly across the bridge of 
the nose will, when one wishes to prevent sneezing, stop it 
in the act. If not checked, the face should be buried in 
the handkerchief, for obvious reasons. 

Susceptible nerves are often tortured by the beating of 
time with the feet, whistling, or humming, which travelling- 
companions indulge in. In the home circle it is never 
allowed, but one cannot control strangers in a railway car. 
This is one of the reasons that travelling in Europe is 
rendered so much more agreeable. Those who have nerves 
of steel, and no exclusive tastes, prefer our own cars to the 
European railway carriages. 

The breath should be kept sweet and pure. Onions are 
called the forbidden fruit of this century. No gentleman 
ought to come into the presence of ladies smelling of tobacco. 
In those homes where the husband is permitted to smoke 
in any room that he fancies to use for the time being, be it 
drawing-room or chamber, the sons will follow the father's 



396 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

example, and the air of the house, in more ways than one, 
will be like that of a public house. 

Physical education is indispensible to every wellbred 
man and woman. A gentleman should not only know 
how to fence, to box, to ride, to shoot, to swim, and to 
play at billiards, he must also know how to carry himself, 
and how to dance if he would enjoy life to the uttermost. 
A good carriage is only attained by the help of a drilling- 
master, and boxing must also be scientifically taught. A 
man should make himself able to defend himself from 
ruffians, and to defend women from them also. 

What fencing and drilling are to a man, dancing and 
calisthenic exercises are to a young woman. Every lady 
•should know how to dance, whether she intends to dance 
in society or not; the better the physical training, the 
more graceful and self-possessed she will be. 

Swimming, skating, archery, games of lawn-tennis and 
croquet, riding and driving, all help to strengthen the 
muscles, and to take the young out in the open air, which 
makes these games desirable. The subject is one that too 
much cannot be said of by parents, teachers, and educa- 
tional reformers. 

In boating parties, one gentleman should always stay in 
the boat, and do his best to steady it, while the others 
help the ladies to step in it from the bank or landing. 

As the seat of honor in a boat is that occupied by the 
stroke oar, it is etiquette for the owner of the boat to offer 
it to his friend, should he be a rower. 

In skating, a gentleman carries the skates of the lady 
whom he accompanies. He fastens on her skates, guides, 
supports, and instructs her if she be a novice. 

In conversation, all provincialisms, affectations of foreign 
accents, mannerisms, exaggerations, and slang are detestable. 
Equally to be avoided are inaccuracies of expressions, hesi- 



SOCIAL OBSERVANCES. 397 

tation, an undue use of French or other foreign words, and 
anything approaching to flippancy, coarseness, triviality, or 
provocation. Gentlemen sometimes address ladies in a 
very flippant manner, which they are obliged to pass over 
without notice, because of various reasons, while inwardly 
they rebel. Many a worthy man has done himself an ir- 
reparable injury by thus creating a lasting prejudice in the 
minds of those whom he might have made his friends, had 
he addressed them as though he considered them rational 
beings, capable of sustaining their part in a conversation 
upon sensible subjects. 

This flippancy is as much an evidence of ill-breeding as 
is the perpetual smile, the wandering eye, the vacant stare, 
and the half-opened mouth of the man who is preparing to 
break in upon the conversation. 

Suppression of undue emotion, whether of laughter, or 
anger, or mortification, or disappointment, or of selfishness 
in any form, is a sure mark of good training. 

Do not go into society unless you can make up your 
mind to be sympathetic, unselfish, animating, as well as 
animated. Society does not require mirth, but it does de- 
mand cheerfulness and unselfishness, and you must help 
to make and sustain conversation. The matter of con- 
versation is as important as the manner. Compliments are 
said by some to be inadmissible. Flattery most certainly 
is. But between equals, or from those of superior posi- 
tion to those of inferior station, compliments should be not 
only acceptable but gratifying. It is pleasant to know 
that our friends think well of us, and it is always agreeable 
to know that we are thought well of by those who hold 
higher positions, as men of superior talent, or women of 
superior culture. Compliments which are not sincere are 
only flattery, and should be avoided ; but the saying of 
kind things w T hich is natural to the kind heart, and which 



398 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

confers pleasure, should be cultivated — at least not sup- 
pressed. Those parents who strive most for the best modes 
of training their children, are said to have found that it is 
never wise to censure them for a fault without preparing 
the way by some judicious mention of their good qualities. 

The flattery of those who are richer than ourselves, or 
better born, is vulgar, and born of snobbism ; and is sure 
to be received as emanating from unworthy motives. 
Testify your respect, your admiration, your gratitude to 
such by deeds more than by words. Words are easy, but 
deeds difficult. Few will believe the first, but the last 
carry confirmation with them. Abroad, compliments are 
not tabooed, excepting in England, and should be received 
without offence. 

All slang is vulgar. It lowers the tone of society and 
the standard of thought. It is a great mistake to suppose 
that slang is in any way witty. Only the very young or 
the uncultivated so consider it. 

Scandal is the least excusable of all conversational vul- 
garities. Envy prompts the tongue of the slanderer. 
Jealousy is the disturber of the harmony of all inter- 
ests. A paragraph in one of John Hughes's letters to 
Doctor Watts, with a little change, might be made to read 
as follows : Gossip is a troublesome sort of insect that only 
buzzes about your ears, and never bites deep ; slander is 
the beast of prey that leaps upon you from his den and 
tears you in pieces. Slander is the proper object of rage ; 
gossip of contempt. 

Those who best understand the nature of gossip and 
slander, if the victims of both, will take no notice of the 
former, and will allow no slander of themselves to go un- 
refuted during their lifetime, to spring up in a hydra- 
headed attack upon their children. No woman can be too 
sensitive as to any charges affecting her moral character, 



SOCIAL OBSERVANCES. 399 

whether in the influence of her companionship, or in the 
influence of her writings. 

Religion is a topic that should never be introduced into 
general society. Like politics, it is a subject dangerous to 
harmony. Persons are most likely to differ, and least 
likely to preserve their temper on these topics. Long argu- 
ments in general company, however entertaining to the 
disputants, are, to the last degree, tiresome to the hearers. 

Interruption of the speech of others is a great sin 
against good-breeding. It has been aptly said, if you 
interrupt a speaker in the middle of his sentence, you act 
almost as rudely as if, when walking with a companion, 
you were to thrust yourself before him and stop his prog- 
ress. 

To listen well is almost as great an art as to talk well ; 
but it is not enough only to listen, you must endeavor to 
seem interested in the conversation of others. Only the 
lowbred allow their impatience to be made evident. 

Young persons can but appear ridiculous when satirizing 
or ridiculing books, people, or things ; opinion, to be worth 
the consideration of others, should have the advantage of 
maturity. Cultivated persons are not in the habit of re- 
sorting to such weapons as satire and ridicule. They find 
too much to correct in themselves, to indulge in coarse 
censure of the conduct of others, who may not have had 
advantages equal to their own. 

Anecdotes should be very sparsely introduced into con- 
versation. Puns are everywhere considered vulgar. Rep- 
artee must be indulged with moderation. It must never 
be kept up, as it then degenerates into the vulgarity of an 
altercation. 

In addressing persons with titles, add the name always, 
as, " What do you think of it, Doctor Hoyt ?" not " What 
do you think of it, Doctor 2" Few solecisms give deeper 



400 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

offence than an}' liberty taken with one's name, which 
should invariably be spelled and pronounced according to 
the example of the possessor. 

In speaking to foreigners, the reverse of the English 
rule is observed. No matter what the title of a French- 
man, he is always addressed as Monsieur, and you never 
omit the word Madame, whether addressing a duchess or a 
dressmaker. The former is " Madame la Duchesse" the 
latter, plain " Madame." 

Always give a foreigner his title. To omit it savors of 
ill-breeding, although it may arise only from ignorance. If 
Admiral Hightone travels in Europe, and is received by 
the best classes with the dignity that his worth, culture, 
and position as an American admiral demands, he will 
never be called Mr. Hightone, but his title will invariably 
precede his name. There are some persons who fancy that 
the omission of a title is annoying to those who possess 
them. This is not the ground taken why the title should 
be given, but because it reveals either ignorance or ill- 
breeding on the part of those omitting it. 

" We Americans don't care for titles," said an illbred 

youth. " Sir Abercrombie was introduced to me, 

but I didn't ' sir ' him. I called him Mr. Abercrombie 
all the time." 

This young man afterwards made an unsuccessful at- 
tempt to get the prefix of Captain to his name. 

The same class of persons, from ignorance of the cus- 
toms of good society, speak of persons by their Christian 
names, who are neither relatives nor intimate friends. This 
is a familiarity which, outside the family circle, and beyond 
friends of the closest intimacy, is never indulged in by the 
we 11 bred. 

It is left to provincial people to say " Sir," " Ma'am," 
and " Miss," in conversation with their equals. The great 



SOCIAL OBSERVANCES. 401 

secret of talking well is to adapt your conversation as 
skilfully as may be to your company. Some men make a 
point of talking commonplaces to all ladies alike, as if a 
woman could only he a trifler. Others, on the contrary, 
seem to forget in what respects the education of a lady 
differs from that of gentlemen, and commit the opposite 
error of conversing on topics with which ladies are seldom 
acquainted. The latter savors of pedantry, the former of 
want of savoir faire ; and a woman of sense has as much 
right to be annoyed by the one, as a lady of ordinary edu- 
cation by the other. If you really wish to be thought 
agreeable, sensible, amiable, and unselfish, yes, and well- 
informed also, lead the way in tete-a-tete conversations, for 
sportsmen to talk of their shooting, a mother to talk of her 
children, a traveller of his journeys and the countries he 
has seen, a young lady of her last ball and the prospective 
ones, an artist of his picture, and an author of any book 
that he has written. 

Do not, however, tell the artist that you hope he will 
send you a ticket to the Spring exhibition, where his pic- 
ture has been placed, in order that you may have the pleas- 
ure of seeing it; nor an author, that you have sent to the 
circulating library until you were tired, as the book is 
always out, lest they may be tempted to answer that they 
have known two or three of their friends who have pur- 
chased the tickets or bought the book. Nothing is more 
gratifying to an author than to find his book in sight 
upon entering a house ; to the artist, than to see at least a 
print of his best picture, which has taken a prize or 
received honorable mention. Yet, in these days, when the 
world is flooded with new books and new pictures, it is 
only the most intimate of his friends from whom either 
artist or author can expect to receive such a flattering at- 
tention. 

26 



402 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

A witty and able author once made the remark that he 
had received such myriads of letters containing favorable 
notices of his bookj that he was at a loss to understand 
how so few of them had been sold, until he reflected that 
they must have been very generally borrowed. "Though 
the writers of books are many," says General de Peyster, 
"the writers of well-written books are few;" and it is a com- 
pliment to the authors when books are even universally 
borrowed ; still more when they are ably criticized. To 
show any interest in the immediate concerns of people is 
very flattering, and when not in general society one is 
always privileged to do this. People take more interest 
in their own affairs than in anything else which you can 
name (unless the good that is in their hearts has been 
eaten out by a love of gossip concerning the affairs of 
others), and if you manifest any interest to hear, there are 
but few who will not sustain conversation by a narration of 
these affairs in some form or another. Thackeray says : 
" Be interested by other people and with their affairs. It 
is because you yourself are selfish that that other person's 
self does not interest you." 

In a tete-a-tete conversation, however interesting, it is 
extremely illbred to drop the voice to a whisper, or to 
converse on private matters. Never put the hand or a fan 
up to hide the lips .in talking. Avoid conversing in society 
with the members *of your own family. Always look but 
never stare at those with whom you converse. If, upon 
the entrance of a visitor, you carry on the thread of a pre- 
vious conversation, you should briefly recapitulate to him 
enough of what has been said to enable him to understand 
it. Remember that a low voice is an excellent thing in 
woman. There is a certain distinct but subdued tone 
which is peculiar to persons of the best breeding. It is 
better even to speak too low than too loud. Everything 



THOROUGH EDUCATION. 403 

"loud" in style or dress is objectionable, loud voices and 
loud laughter included. 

Conversation is a reflex of character. The pretentious, 
the illiterate, the impatient, the envious, reveal their char- 
acter by it; for strive as they may, they cannot always be 
acting. There are many words, the use of which reveal 
the degree of cultivation, or which are used in some cases 
by persons who have known better, but who have become 
careless from association with others who make constant 
use of them. "Because that" and "but that" should never 
be used in connection, the word "that" being entirely su- 
perfluous. The word "vocation" is often used for "avoca- 
tion;" the former means a calling, the latter a calling 
from, and thus a man cannot attend to his vocation, because 
he has avocation elsewhere. "Unhealthy food" is often 
spoken of when it should be "unwholesome." "Had not 
ought to" is sometimes heard for "ought not to;" "preven- 
tative", for "preventive;" "banister" for "baluster;" 
"aught" (o) for "naught;" "handsful" and "spoonsful" 
for " haudfuls " and "spoonfuls;" "it was her" for "it was 
she;" "it was me" for "it was I;" "who do you think 
was there?" for "whom do you think was there?" "a mu- 
tual friend " for " a common friend ;" "like I did" instead 
of "as I did ; " "those sort of things" instead of "this sort 
of thing;" " laying down " for "lying down;" "setting on 
a chair" for "sitting on a chair;" "try and make him" 
instead of "try to make him;" "she looked charmingly" 
for "she looked charming;" "loan " for " lend " (a not un- 
common vulgarism); " to get along" instead of "to get on;" 
"cupalo" instead of "cupola;" "who" for "whom;" — as 
" who did you see?" for " whom did you see?" double nega- 
tives, as "Fleetfoot did not win the race — at least I don't 
think he did;" "lesser" for "least;" "move" instead of 
"remove;" "off-set," instead of" set-off;" "oldest" instead 



404 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

of " eldest;" and many, many other words which are often 
carelessly used by those who have been better taught, as 
well as by those who are ignorant of their proper use. The 
author of that excellent book, " The Art of Conversation/' 
recommends " Live and Learn," a work which contains 
examples of one thousand errors in speaking. 

The course of reading which is laid down by this author 
is admirable in selection, comprising not only works on 
aesthetics, on the various sciences and the choicest writings 
of standard authors, but those books of miscellaneous 
knowledge, best adapted to suggesting topics of conversa- 
tion and to instruct in literary composition. The "Art 
of Conversation " is not only a book for the young, who 
seek counsel for self-education, but it should be studied by all 
who are interested in the culture of young people — teachers 
as well as parents. There are some writers who express 
themselves in purer English than others, and whose 
works it is well to study for the cultivation of style. 
Macau lay, Sydney Smith, Southey, Jeremy Taylor, Defoe, 
George Eliot, and Anthony Trollope, are distinguished 
for good, clear Saxon English. Among American authors, 
too numerous to mention, the works of Washington Ir- 
ving, Emerson, Motley, and Hawthorne stand high on the 
list. 

The indifference of parents to this matter of forming and 
guiding the tastes of their children in early youth, even 
of very intelligent men and women, is extraordinary. 
Children are permitted to select books at will from home 
libraries, which must always contain among their standard 
works many things that should not be brought to the 
notice of immature minds ; and boys and girls are given 
the largest liberty in visiting public libraries, and in 
choosing therefrom at random, books, of the character of 
which they know nothing, and against which there is no 



THOROUGH EDUCATION 405 

one to warn them. Nothing is more important to the educa- 
tion of a child than its reading. Many a man has obtained 
almost all the education he has from such a source. And 
yet the mass of parents, while exercising the most scru- 
pulous care in selecting teachers for their children, are 
utterly heedless of the nature of the material which is 
gathered by them from the books they read for entertain- 
ment. A wise father will find it most profitable to the in- 
tellect and the morals of his sons to outline for them, from 
their earliest childhood, the course of reading in which 
they must proceed, and to guide them carefnlly through it. 
The parent who has not the acquaintance with literature 
which is necessary to the preparation of such a plan, ought 
to seek the counsel of some learned and judicious friend 
who can arrange a system for him. 

Fiction of course is not to be excluded. There is a 
wide range among the standard novel writers in which a 
lad or young girl may be permitted to go almost at will. 
But the flashy novels, the unclean novels, the novels that 
glow with the fires of impure passions, are to be relentlessly 
proscribed. A boy can obtain more real enjoyment from 
such a wholesome book as Robinson Crusoe, than he can 
from any of the tales of adventure which corrupt and dis- 
tort his mind. But a youth should be taught very early 
to look with other than the very common feeling of dis- 
like upon more solid literature. An intelligent boy who 
can be induced to read, for instance, such a book as 
"Prescott's Conquest of Mexico," will find that it has an 
interest possessed by no work of fiction ; that upon a solid 
basis of instructive fact, there is built a story of enterprise, 
daring, and heroic achievement so fascinating that it will 
rivet the attention and excite the enthusiasm of the dullest 
reader. The excellent works of this class, and of other 
classes equally important, are so plentiful that the only 



406 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

matter for perplexity in laying out a course of reading 
will be to choose the best among the thoroughly good. 

But the important object to be aimed at is to train the 
undeveloped taste of the learner so that it will prefer the 
pure and profitable things to those that are dangerous and 
worthless. The mind of a child can be disciplined in such 
a matter quite as readily as its feet can be taught to walk, 
and the process does not demand harsh treatment of any 
kind. The young intellect may be led by pleasant paths 
up through the most beautiful ways of literature to easy 
familiarity with the best thoughts of the world's best wri- 
ters, and to loving appreciation of all that is good and 
noble and elevating in the things that are recorded in 
books. The child who has had such training is the most 
fortunate of beings. The man who has grown up under 
such a system has had mental discipline and has acquired 
knowledge which will equip him most fitly for the battle 
of life. The churches cannot possibly do this work, so- 
ciety cannot do it, no organized effort on the part of wise 
men can accomplish it. It must be done by those who 
make the child's life a part of their own, who minister to 
the child in other things, and who have the authority and 
the tender solicitude which only a parent can have. But 
the other agencies can enlighten parents and show them 
clearly what are their opportunities, and that there is dire 
need of such enlightenment is certain enough. 

Those mothers who realize how vast are their responsi- 
bilities, and who seek that counsel from the experienced 
which such mothers always feel the need of receiving, and 
that co-operation of teachers, which is essential to the 
highest and best development of the mental, moral, and 
physical nature of children, will find in a little book 
called " Sex In Education," those suggestions which are 
the most needed for enabling them to attain such an end. 



THOROUGH EDUCATION 407 

It is true that the reader of this book, if a mother, might 
feel at first that she would rather err upon the side of too 
little learning for her children than too much, and exclaim 
against the advocates of woman's higher culture for seeking 
to stimulate girls into the pursuance of more ambitious 
aims in following their home or their school studies. 

"Harvard examinations for girls!" said a mother not 
long since. " What ! do they propose to send girls to 
college ? and no matrons to look after them !" 

Not at all. Harvard examinations for girls are not 
identical with the entrance examination of the University, 
nor are its doors thrown open to women ; but are offered 
as a test of culture, with a desire to promote that thorough- 
ness of instruction and acquisition, which will, at least, tend 
to establish the basis of education on as firm a foundation 
for women as for men. Whether regarded as a special 
preparation for teaching or other literary work, or as a 
means of purely private mental cultivation, it cannot fail 
to richly compensate those who are willing to strive 
earnestly after that thorough education, which it is the 
object of the " Harvard examinations" to aid women in 
attaining. 

At present, the chief impediments to the higher edu- 
cation of woman are the superficial character of her 
studies, and the opposition of men who associate blue- 
stockings in their minds with all that is unfeminine and 
unlovely. But if we look around us in social life and note 
down who are the faithful wives, the most patient and 
careful mothers, the most exemplary housekeepers, the 
model sisters, the wisest philanthropists, and the women of 
the most social influence, we will have to admit that most 
frequently they are women of cultivated minds, without 
which even warm hearts and good intentions are but partial 
influences. 



408 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

It will be seen that mothers who have fancied that 
the advocates of "Harvard examination/ 5 are seeking to 
give girls a co-edncaticn with their brothers, and that 
they are aiming at a more exhaustive course of study 
than has yet been laid out for them, are in error. 
Such women take but a narrow and one-sided view of the 
word u education." Dr. Clark shows the readers of his 
book that, according to his ideas, education comprehends 
instruction, discipline, manners, and habits ; that it in> 
eludes home-life, school-life, and social-life ; and the same 
author tells us that if we would give our girls a fair 
chance, and see them become and do their best by reaching 
after and attaining an ideal beauty and power, w hi elf shall 
be a crown of glory and a tower of strength to the re- 
public, we must look after their complete development as 
women. This is too sensible a statement not to be ad- 
mitted without question; but is it not a fact that, before 
boys and girls have attained their full growth, that amouut 
of study that is bad for the one is bad for the other ; and 
should not the object be, of both parents and teachers, an 
equal degree of thoroughness for either sex? 

The same studies that are pursued by boys for the 
strengthening of the faculties of the mind will produce 
the same result in girls; and when we remember how 
large a share of the training of her sons falls to the lot of 
a mother, we see how important it is that a woman's re- 
flective and reasoning faculties should be well developed 
before such responsibilities are thrust upon her. 

Why then is it that our girls are taught so much that is 
superficial? such a smattering of many branches? when 
two or three studies at a time, systematically pursued and 
thoroughly mastered, would accomplish so much more 
for them in the way of mental training, as well as in lay- 
ing a solid foundation for that structure, which, although 



THOROUGH EDUCATION. 409 

the work of a lifetime, each one must build for herself. 
A man's mind may be roused by another, and his desire 
to improve and advance himself excited by another, but 
he must mould his own material, quarry his own na- 
ture, make his own character. Admitting this, what then 
is the work of the teacher and the parent ? Not only is 
it to lay the foundation aright, but to supply such tools as 
are best fitted to this life work. 

How often are young girls given from six to ten studies, 
in which they prepare daily lessons, and this too, at an age 
when the development of their physical growth is checked 
by excess of mental labor : geography, history, ancient 
and modern; natural philosophy, botany, chemistry, math- 
ematics, mental philosophy, rhetoric, grammar, astron- 
omy, and weekly or semi-weekly lessons in political 
economy, English literature and composition. All these, 
without touching upon languages, music, drawing, and 
needlework. Is it any wonder that mothers who have 
not understood the aim of the advocates of a higher edu- 
cation for our girls cry out against it? Is it any wonder 
that the victims of our present system protest that their 
school education already embraces a higher 'number of 
studies than they are able to pursue? 

A course of instruction that bestows only a smattering 
of many branches wastes the powers of the mind. It does 
not lay aright the foundation, nor does it provide the neces- 
sary tools for the work of self-improvement. Concentra- 
tion of the mind upon the thorough acquisition of all it 
undertakes, strengthens the reflective, and forms the rea- 
soning faculties, and thus helps to lay a solid foundation 
for future usefulness. 

We see the idea now everywhere advanced, that owing 
to the changes in social and industrial life which have 
crowded many women from the privacy of their homes into 



410 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the arena of public life, they must select their branch of 
labor and train for it as a man trains for his work (when 
the circumstances of their parents make it impossible to 
secure to them an independent position) if they wish to 
attain any degree of success. Even where women have an 
independence, their lives will be all the happier if they have 
been trained with some end in view ; some occupation, that 
in case of reverses may be made a self-sustaining one. 

The woman who is able to support herself increases her 
chances for a happy marriage, or, as Lady Gore Langton 
expresses it, " A woman who knows that in remaining 
single she does not leave herself without interest and occu- 
pation, would both double her chances of marriage, and be 
able to judge calmly of an offer when it comes." So that 
still another advantage would be gained, by diminishing 
the number of those loveless marriages, which are as dis- 
honorable to women as they are deteriorating to their moral 
natures, and productive of unalloyed misery to both hus- 
bands and wives. 

But to return to the subject of school instruction. In 
the preposterous number of lessons given to our daughters 
lies one source of the deficiencies in their education. It is 
also the fruitful cause of their deficient physical develop- 
ment, and of the ofttimes serious consequences that result 
from the too great strain imposed upon their mental pow- 
ers. The word education means to educe, to draw out the 
powers of .the mind ; not the cramming into it of facts and 
dates, and of whole pages, to be repeated like a parrot. Not 
until the best methods for drawing out these powers are 
pursued, with a view to the highest development of the 
physical, moral, and mental nature combined, will our 
women receive that "higher education" which fits them 
first and foremost to be wives and mothers, and equally 
well fits them to take care of themselves when destiny 



THOROUGH EDUCATION. 411 

makes it necessary for them to depend upon their own 
exertions. Dr. Clarke tells us, in his book referred to, 
that it is not the object of a liberal female education to ar- 
rest her physiological development ; that such is not the 
consummation which the progress of the age demands. Let 
us hope with him that it is only necessary to point out the 
existence of our erroneous method, and prove its evil re- 
sults, to have parents and teachers unite in the work of 
reformation. So well has Dr. Clarke done this work of 
pointing out, in his book, "Sex In Education," that we 
know of no greater act of philanthropy toward our race, 
than it would be to place a copy in the hands of every 
mother capable of understanding it. Its pages tell us 
how woman can have a liberal education that will de- 
velop all her powers up to the loftiest ideal of woman- 
hood, as well as that this higher culture is the legitimate 
aim of womankind. u Physiology," he says, " teaches that 
this result, the attainment of which our hopes prophesy, is 
to be secured, not by an identical education of the sexes, 
but by a special and appropriate education, that shall pro- 
duce a just and harmonious development of every part." 
To mothers, with young daughters to rear, who have given 
this subject any thought, but who have felt they were 
walking in darkness as far as any steps in the way of 
reform were concerned, this book of Dr. Clarke's will come 
like an angel of light to reveal the path of duty; while to 
those less fortunate mothers, who having felt the need of a 
more thorough education for their daughters than girls 
generally receive, have stimulated their mental efforts at 
the expense of their proper physical development, it will 
waken that knell of memory, " Too late ! too late !" 

Surely there is no mother who has not thought that our 
school systems are at fault, as much for her sons as for her 
daughters. Is it right for any growing child to be kept in 



412 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

any school but a Kinder-Garten five hours of the day, with 
additional study hours at home? How can we look for 
other than deterioration of our race so long as mothers pay 
so little attention to the laws of physiology ? The wonder 
is, that when the brain is so constantly taxed, and the 
physiological development overlooked, that nature, in ful- 
filling her laws, makes any selections for survival from our 
men and women of intellect, and not that so few persons 
of genius have transmitted their mental qualities to their 
posterity. 

The physiological motto is, Educate a man for manhood, 
a woman for womanhood, both for humanity. In this lies 
the hope of the race. Dr. Clarke tells us that the race 
holds its destinies in its own hands; he should have said it 
is woman who holds and controls the destinies of mankind. 
When one generation of mothers and teachers have been 
educated upon physiological principles ; when the question 
is not " What can woman do?" but, " What can she best 
do ?" then will girls have a fair chance of reaching after 
and attaining that ideal of beauty and power which shall 
make them a crown of glory and a tower of strength to a 
republic. Appropriate education of the two sexes, carried 
as far as possible, is a consummation most devoutly to be 
desired; identical education of the two sexes is a crime 
before God and humanity, that physiology protests against 
and that experience weeps over. 

Eferbert Spencer has drawn attention to the evils result- 
ing from the want of a proper course of training and prep- 
aration for girls, in the following words : " It is an aston- 
ishing fact that, though on the treatment of offspring depend 
their lives or deaths and their moral welfare or ruin, yet 
not one word of instruction on treatment of offspring is 

ever given to those who will by and by be parents 

Consider the young mother and her nursery legislation, 



HIGHER CULTURE OF WOMEN. 413 

.... no thought having been given to the grave re- 
sponsibilities of maternity, and scarcely any of that solid 
intellectual culture obtained which would be some prepara- 
tion for such responsibilities. And now see her, with an 
unfolding human character committed to her charge; see 
her profoundly ignorant of the phenomena with which she 
has to deal, undertaking to do that which can be done but 
imperfectly with the aid of the profoundest knowledge/' 

Physiology is but one branch in that higher education 
which women need to enable them to fulfil the various 
duties of their allotted stations. From the full apprecia- 
tion of the desirability of more thoroughness in all branches 
that they undertake, has sprung the Harvard examinations 
for women. Those who pass them have acquired that 
thorough mastery of the studies pursued, which insures to 
them, if they have native energy, success in whatever they 
undertake — success where men will have the monopoly as 
long as women are deficient in such preparation. Without 
it, those who enter upon the struggle for life must do it 
almost as hopelessly as a drowning man catches at straws; 
for want of thoroughness in the education of women is 
their greatest hindrance to success in all branches of labor. 

Mrs. William Gray, of London, who is so nobly doing 
in England the work which Sheridan planned, and Aime- 
Martin indorsed, says, in one of her papers read before the 
Social Science Congress in 1871 : "Let it not be supposed 
that I undervalue marriage, or that I want to broach some 
wild theory of feminine independence ; so far from it, I 
hold that only in the union of man and woman is human 
life perfect and complete. I would not wish, even if it 
were possible, to make women independent of men ; but 
neither do I wish them to sit in half-starved or luxurious 
idleness, or worse still, planning for husbands by whom 
they are to be raised to the single dignity possible to them. 



414 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Let us not rest — no, not an instant — till we have won for 
women the right and the means to the highest culture of 
which their nature is capable ; not that they may gratify 
an unwomanly spirit of selfish ambition and rivalry, but 
that they may become more worthy and more fit to do the 
noble work God has given them to do." 

Studying for the Harvard examinations, whether re- 
garded as a course of training for self-support, or as a 
means of higher cultivation of the mind, will bring its 

O 7 O 

gain in the supplanting of showy superficialities by that 
solid knowledge which has been lacking in the education 
of women, and which is so sadly needed, not only to pre- 
pare girls to be good wives and mothers, but to fit those 
who do not sustain these relations to fill honorable careers — 
making of them women — 

" Who pay not to their Lord, as if afraid, 
Here is thy talent in a napkin laid, 
But labor in their sphere as those who live 
In the delight that work alone can give." 

Until our girls are better fitted, by training and educa- 
tion, to take care of themselves, by all means let them 
continue to have that restraining presence of chaperons 
which they always have had in our really best society. 



MISCALLED EDUCATION. 415 



CHAPTEE XIV. 



MISCALLED EDUCATION — WANT OF INDIVIDUALITY — ORIGI- 
NAL PEOPLE — AIMLESS STUDY — OBJECTS OF WOMAN'S 
HIGHER CULTURE. 

That noble Englishwoman, Emily Shirreff, daughter of Admiral 
Shirreff, who has given all the best years of her life to reforms in the 
education of women, defines "higher education " in this admirable 
manner : " It is simply the education that follows that of school ; the 
course of study pursued after the preparatory studies of schooltime 
are completed. Higher education would, in its full meaning, com- 
prise these as part of the means of that self-culture which begins 
when childish trammels are cast off, to end only when the uses of this 
world have trained the immortal spirit for higher work in some yet 
unknown region." 

" Sensible of the supreme importance of right education toward the 
happiness of a state, our ancestors bestowed the strictest attention 
upon forming the manners of the youth. . . . Nor did they think it 
sufficient to lay a foundation of good principles in the minds of young 
people, and leave them, after they were grown up, to act as they 
pleased; on the contrary, the manners of adult persons were more 
strictly inspected than those of youth. . . . The general prevalence 
of these dispositions in a people is brought about by education and 
example. . . . Those whose minds have received from education a 
proper bent, will behave well, though left to themselves. ... To 
advise that we should return to some of the institutions of our an- 
cestors is surely a very different matter from proposing innovations. 
. . . Experience may teach us what we have to expect, if we go on 
in the track we are now in." — Isocrates' Areopagic Oration. 

" Nothing is more prejudicial to democracy than its outward forms 
of behavior ; many men would willingly endure its vices, who can- 
not support its manners. Though the manners of European aristoc- 
racy do not constitute virtue, they sometimes embellish even virtue 
itself. 



416 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

" If I were asked to what the singular prosperity and growing 
strength of the American-; ought mainly to be attributed, I should 
reply, to the superiority of their women/' — Democracy in America. 

More than two thousand years ago, Isocrates, a distin- 
guished writer of Athens, gave utterance to his views 
concerning the chief requisite toward contributing to the 
happiness of a people or a state; from which discourse the 
compiler has culled what he then said of the importance 
of bestowing the strictest attention upon forming the man- 
ners of youth in order to gain this end. Word for word, 
what he then uttered is applicable to the present condition 
of our society. The history of social life is always repeating 
itself, as is the history of nations, and those people are the 
wisest who take the lessons to heart. To a second Isocrates, 
a disciple of the Athenian orator, is attributed another dis- 
course, which consists of moral precepts for the conduct of 
life and the regulation of the deportment of the young, 
illustrating the fact that, link by link, through long cen- 
turies, has the culture of one generation been carried 
down and connected with the next, for the ultimate ad- 
vancement of mankind. The individual may perish, the 
race become extinct, but the effect of culture throws re- 
flected light down the channel of time. 

All systems may be said to have descended from previous 
ones. The ideas of one generation are the mysterious pro- 
genitors of those of the next. Each age is the dawn of 
its successor, and in the eternal advance of truth, 

"There always is a rising sun, 
And day is ever but begun." 

It is thus true that there is nothing new under the sun, 
since the new grows from the old as boughs grow from the 
tree ; and though errors and exaggerations are, from time 



MISCALLED EDUCATION. 417 

to time, shaken off, yet " the things which cannot be 
shaken" will certainly abide. 

Carlyle says : " Literature is but a branch of religion, 
and always participates in its character." It is still more 
true that education is a branch of mental philosophy, and 
takes its mould and fashion from it. For it is evident that 
as philosophy, in successive ages, gives varying answers as 
to man's chief end and summum bonum, so education, which 
is simply an attempt to prepare him therefor, must vary 
accordingly. Humboldt hints that the vegetation of whole 
regions bespeaks and depends on the strata beneath ; ami 
it is certainly true that we cannot delve lon°; in the 
teacher's plot without coming upon those moral questions 
which go down to the centre. 

Richter delighted to preach the doctrine of an ideal 
man, and that education is the harmonious development 
of the faculties and dispositions of each individual. No 
one knew better than he that (in Carlyle's words) a loving 
heart is the beginning of all knowledge. This it is that 
opens the whole mind, and quickens every faculty of the 
intellect to do its fit work. This it is which influences and 
controls the manners, and, with proper training, distin- 
guishes the well-educated from the ill-educated, the man- 
nerly from the unmannerly; the gentlewoman from the 
underbred woman ; the gentleman from the boor. It is 
the women of a nation who make the manners of the men. 

More than thirty years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote 
his book, " Democracy in America," from which we have 
quoted the above tribute to our women, and the accompany- 
ing censure to our manners. 

The censure and the tribute are as just to-day as they 
were when written. Quite recently, an American lady, 
writing to a European grandson, expressed the hope that 
he might some day leave his country and come to America 

•27 



418 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

to be a business man and an American. The mother of 
the boy answered the letter, and the answer so illustrates 
De Tocqueville's assertion that the compiler quotes a few 
lines from the letter : 

" I did not read G what you wrote in reference to his 

future. I prefer a modest competence here, for my sons, 
to untold millions in America ; and, as for myself, I would 
rather live in a cottage here, than in a palace there. The 
self-conceit and pretentiousness of people, who are neither 
well born nor well trained, spoil the best society every- 
where in the United States." 

It has been said that there is scarcely any soul born into 
this world in which a self-sacrificing, steady effort on the 
parent's part may not lay broad and deep the foundations 
of strength of will, of self-control ; and, therefore, of that 
self-reverence and self-knowledge which, combined with 
the possession and love of noble ideas, will enable men and 
women not only to have good manners, but to be true and 
useful to God and mankind. The regeneration of society 
is in the power of the woman, and she turns away from 
it. The manners of men, the hearts of men, the lives 
of men are in her hands. How does she use her power? 
Divers are the answers that might be made to this ques- 
tion — answers which have living witnesses of their sad 
truth in every circle of society around us. But we leave 
them all untouched in this chapter, and continue from the 
same author. There is no sadder nor uglier sight in this 
world than to see the women of a land grasping at the 
ignobls honor and rejecting the noble, leading the men, 
whom they should guide into high thought and active sac- 
rifice, into petty slander of gossip in conversation, and into 
discussion of dangerous and unhealthy feeling, becoming 
in this degradation of their directing power the curse, and 
not the blessing of social intercourse — becoming what men 



WANT OF INDIVIDUALITY. 419 

in frivolous moments wish them to be, instead of making 
men what men should be ; ceasing to protest against im- 
purity and unbelief, and giving them an underhand en- 
couragement, turning away from their mission to bless, to 
exalt, and to console, that they may struggle through a 
thousand meannesses into a higher position, and waste 
their divine energy to win precedence over a rival ; ex- 
pending all the force which their nature gives them in 
false and sometimes base excitements day after day, with 
an awful blindness and a pitable degradation ; exhausting 
life in amusements which fritter away, or in amusements 
which debase their character — not thinking of the thou- 
sands of their sisters who are weeping in the night for 
hunger and for misery of heart. This is not our work, 
this is the work of men, they say. Be it so, if you 
like. Let them be the hands that do it; but who, if not 
women, are to be the hearts of the redemption of their sex 
from social wrong? 

Still nearer home lied the point which is the most im- 
portant of all, and which we have digressed from in order 
to give this eloquent passage, namely, the proper education 
of youth. Our miscalled education looks chiefly as to how 
a young girl may make a good figure in society, and this 
destroys in her the beauty of unconsciousness of self. She 
grows up and enters society, and there is either a violent 
reaction against conventionality, or there is a paralyzing 
sensitiveness to opinion, or there is a dull repose of char- 
acter and manner, which is all but equivalent to stagna- 
tion. We see many who are afraid of saying openly what 
they think or feel, if it be in opposition to the accred- 
ited opinions of the world ; we see others who rejoice in 
shocking opinion for the sake of making themselves re- 
markable — perhaps the basest form of social vanity, for it 
gives pain, and does not spring from conviction. Both 



420 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

forms arise from the education which makes the child self- 
conscious, leading the mind to ask that degrading ques- 
tion, " What will people say of me?" 

For, to make your children live only by the opinions 
of others, to train them not to influence, but to submit to 
the world, is to educate them to think only of themselves, 
is to train them up to inward falseness, is to destroy 
all eternal distinctions between right and wrong, is to 
reduce them to that dead level of uneducated unoriginal- 
ity which is the most melancholy feature in the young 
society of the present day. Let them grow naturally, 
keep them as long as is possible unconscious of themselves; 
and, for the sake of the world, which, in the midst of all 
its conventional dulness, longs for something fresh and 
true, if not for their own sakes, do not press upon them 
the belief that the voice of society is the measure of what 
is right or wrong, beautiful or unbeautiful, fitting or unfit- 
ting for them to do. This want of individuality is one of 
the most painful deficiencies in our present society. The 
rectification of this evil lies at the root of Christianity, for 
all Christ's teachings tend to produce individuality, to 
rescue men from being mingled up, indistinguishable 
atoms, with the mass of men ; to teach them that they 
possess a distinct character, which it is God's will to edu- 
cate ; distinct gifts, which God the Spirit will inspire and 
develop; a peculiar work for which each man is elected, 
and in performing which his personality will become 
more and more defined. The conventional spirit of the 
world is in exact opposition to this, to wear all individual- 
ity down into uniformity. There must be nothing original 
(in the world's language, eccentric, erratic) ; men must 
desire nothing strongly, think nothing which the majority 
do not think, have no strongly outlined character. 

This state of things causes an atmosphere to brood over 



WANT OF INDIVIDUALITY, 421 

the generality, in which it is becoming more and more 
impossible for a man of heroic character to develop him- 
self. The spirit which lives in this atmosphere of torpid- 
ity sets itself at once in opposition to any man or woman 
who is rash enough to step forth to challenge the general 
monotony. The world finds that he or she cannot be 
borne. It is incredible audacity ! What is his one voice 
to the grand tone of our collective wisdom ? The man 
must be put down. So men of individuality are becoming 
rarer and rarer. Society must not be affronted with origi- 
nality. It is a rudeness. It suggests that society might 
be better, that there may be an imperfection here and 
there. Level everybody, and then let us all collectively 
advance. Original people shock the world ; as if that 
were not the very best thing which could happen to the 
world. Original people are depreciated; if they persist, 
they are persecuted and killed. This has been the custom 
in times past ; but now it would seem that men are long- 
ing for a new life and a new order of things, longing for 
some fresh ideas to come and stir the stagnant pool of life. 
It is one of the advantages of wealth and high position, 
that those who possess them may unite together and initi- 
ate the uncustomary without a cry being raised against 
them. 

These are the words of Rev. Stopford Brooke, a clergy- 
man of the Church of England. This is the way in which 
he handles modern London Society. Would that we had 
some angel to stir the stagnant waters around us, and 
make them sweet and clean. But it is not in the power 
of any one angel to do the work which lies only in the 
united power of many angels — the angels of our house- 
holds. And many households have an angel in their 
midst, whether it be in the form of wife, mother, sister, or 
daughter ; wherever there is one who, in the face of the 



422 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

manifold discouragements of daily life, "borne down by 
the little earking cares that sap out love and happiness so 
slowly but so surely ," still bears up, and by example and 
conversation — 

" Teaches love to suffer and be pure, 

That virtue conquers if it but endure, 

That noblest gifts should serve the noblest ends, 

That he's the richest who the most befriends ; 

That through life's journey, dark or bright the day, 

Fate's not unkind, whatever men may say, 

If goodness walks companion of their way." 

It is the preacher's province to inspire women with a 
desire to do their share in the great work, which should be 
and which is their mission, namely, the purification, im- 
provement and regeneration of mankind, by living up to 
doctrines which, though everywhere professed, are nowhere 
followed. These verses from the grand poem of Whittier to 
"Our Master," reveal wherein we fail. 

. . . " O Love ineffable ! 

Thy saving name is given ; 
To turn aside from thee is hell, 

To walk with thee is heaven ! 

" Not thine the bigot's partial plea, 
Nor thine the zealot's ban ; 
Thou well canst spare a love of thee 
Which ends in hate of man. 

u We bring no ghastly holocaust, 
"We pile no graven stone ; 
He serves thee best who loveth most 
His brothers and thy own." 

Judged by such a test, who can say, "lama Christian ?" 
Rather will not some of the teachings of barbarian phi- 
losophers put us to shame ! Only by instilling into the 



WANT OF INDIVIDUALITY. 423 

minds of children, from their earliest years, a love of jus- 
tice and truth, sympathy with their kind, reverence for all 
goodness,, and conscientious desire to know and to do the 
right, can we hope to have a generation of Christian men 
and women, worthy of the republic which confers upon 
them its unsurpassed rights and privileges. Then shall 
we have communities accustomed to other principles than 
those by which our people are now influenced in the mass. 

Now, as in the time of the republic of Athens, liberty 
and licentiousness are too often considered as synonymous 
terms, and the happiness of the unprincipled consists in 
the unpunished violation of the laws. An eloquent 
Athenian orator, calling the attention of his audience to the 
way in which the original constitution of the common- 
wealth was administered in the time of Solon, gave utter- 
ance to sentiments which might be spoken with equal 
fitness to the present state of our republic, when comparing 
it with the time of Washington, as follows : 

"In those times, the equal distribution of justice which 
prevailed, brought adequate punishment upon those who 
deserved it, and conferred the due honors upon such as had 
earned them by their virtue. Preferment to stations of 
power and trust was not then open to all promiscuously. 
They who appeared to the public to have the best claim 
by merit and character, obtained them ; for they wisely 
considered, that to promote to high stations men of 
superior eminence for virtue, was the likeliest means to 
excite to general emulation among persons of all ranks, 
even to the lowest, as the people are constantly observed to 
form their manners upon the model of their superiors. In- 
stead of the public treasures plundered to fill the coffers 
of private persons, it was common to see large sums of 
private wealth voluntarily contributed for defraying the 
public expense. In those times the difficulty was, to pre- 



424 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

vail upon the persons qualified for filling important stations 
to assume them, whereas, in our days, all are aspiring to 
preferment, worthy and unworthy, qualified and unquali- 
fied. In those times, they who refused, were the most 
solicited to assume high stations, as it was considered that 
merit is commonly diffident of itself. In our days, they 
who elbow others, and thrust themselves forward, obtain 
the most readily, what they, by this very conduct, show 
themselves the most unworthy of. Our ancestors did not 
look upon a place of authority as an emolument, but as a 
trust ; the successor did not inquire what sums his prede- 
cessor had gained while he held his employment, but wdiat 
he had left undone, that the deficiency might be supplied 
as soon as possible. 

" They held it proper that the administration should be 
trusted to those who had the most to lose in case of a sub- 
version of the state ; but so, that no riches nor power should 
screen any person from an inquiry into his conduct, nor 
from suffering adequate punishment in case of delinquency. 
The rich thought extreme poverty in the lower people a 
reflection upon them, as having failed in their patronage 
of them ; and the poor, far from envying the wealth of 
their superiors, rejoiced in it, considering the power of the 
rich as their protection." The general prevalence of these 
dispositions in a people, the same writer tells us, is not 
brought about by laws or sanctions, but by education and 
example, by forming the minds of the people so that they 
shall have no disposition to offend. 

The time is ripe in our country's history for availing 
ourselves of the experience of other republics, which, 
puffed up with an opinion of their own strength and safety, 
have trusted to rash and imprudent counsels with fatal 
results. For now, as always, while a condition of perfect 
prosperity brings with it the causes and forerunners of 



WANT OF INDIVIDUALITY. 425 

misfortune, narrower circumstances commonly lead on to 
care, prudence^ and safety, causing the wise and patriotic 
to set themselves with speed and diligence to find out and 
carry into execution, the most proper and effectual means 
of redressing evils which otherwise draw after them ruin- 
ous consequences. 

What Sheridan worked and planned for, the cause that 
engaged Madame Neckar de Saussure's and Aime-Martin's 
eloquent pens, is now occupying the minds and hearts of 
numbers in our own land, who at length realize that under 
the domestic roof are formed those opinions, and those moral 
feelings which sustain institutions or prepare their fall. 

Women are formed to become instructors, for while they 
hold immediately in their hands the morality of their 
children, those future sovereigns of the earth, the example 
they may give and the charm they may diffuse over other 
periods of life, furnish to them means for the amelioration 
of every evil. Whatever in political organization is not 
founded on the true interests of families, soon disappears, 
or produces only evil ; and as these interests are chiefly 
confided to women, particularly as the attention of men is 
otherwise directed, as also in the material arrangements, it 
is principally to women that the care of health, and the 
care of property has devolved ; so in the spiritual depart- 
ment, it is they who communicate or awaken sentiments 
which are the life of the soul — the eternal impetus of ac- 
tions. Their influence is immense in the vicissitudes of 
life. There is then constant action and reaction between 
public and private life, and thence may result a double 
advancement in civilization ; for, if domestic administra- 
tion were generally better understood, a purer element 
would be poured into society by a thousand channels. 

That which it seems most necessary to form in woman, 
is a prompt ability to decide correctly of what every 



416 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

moment requires. Principles elevated, firm, and founded 
on reflection, joined to her natural gifts, can alone render 
her capable of fulfilling that mission of instruction for 
which she is designed ; but not until her own instruction 
has become as solid and as rational as it has been hereto- 
fore weak and incoherent, can we hope for this result. 

In England, women of wealth and high position have 
banded themselves together, with the Princess Louise at 
their head, for the purpose of giving facilities for acquiring 
this higher and better education, which is so necessary for 
the developing and drawing out of their powers, and, in an 
humbler way, some of our women, without that co-opera- 
tion so desirable for fullest success, are working for the 
same ends. They see the evils of aimless study revealed 
on all sides — in woman's lessened influence for good on 
man, in the inherited tendencies of her offspring, and in 
the deterioration of society, as far as " the graces of high 
culture," if not its morality, are concerned. 

Still more plainly do these evils make themselves felt in 
individual cases of thousands seeking employment and 
finding none, because they have not had the special train- 
ing necessary to inspire confidence in patrons who seek for 
skilful workers, not for inefficient ones. 

Two facts have now struggled fairly into terrible promi- 
nence. The first is that thousands of women die of dis- 
ease and starvation, or rush into sin for want of work ; and 
the second is that women are fit for a vast number of em- 
ployments which have hitherto been kept from them, and 
which, nerved by misery and hunger, they are slowly 
wrenching from the apathetic grasp of men. These two 
facts alone are enough to establish woman's claims to 
higher culture of her powers — to that special education 
and training which will fit her for employment, give her a 
distaste for an idle, frivolous life, and enable her, as mother 



427 

and teacher, to train aright the children committed to her 
care. 

We have seen that through her children a woman rules 
posterity; that she leaves for good or for evil indelible 
marks on the universe ; that the tendencies inherited from 
the past are transmitted to the future — acquired qualities 
as well as natural qualities — and so we come back to the 
assertion of the Athenian philosopher as to the importance 
of educating our youth aright. 

The Reverend H. R. Haweis, an English clergyman, 
writing of the plague-spots of our modern life, asserts that 
idleness lies at the root of much of the misery of social 
life. People are wicked and miserable, he says, because 
they have nothing to do. Idleness breeds selfishness in 
every possible form, unbalanced feelings, backbiting, and 
mischief-making. It will wake dormant lusts, and stim- 
ulate lying and malice and treachery ; and there is hardly 
anything bad which it will not breed. He continues: 
Mothers ! see that your daughters are occupied — see that 
they are well informed as to household duties, as to the 
duties of married life; for lifelong happiness or misery 
may depend upon their knowledge of such details. How 
much disease and misery, mental and physical, might not 
mothers spare their daughters by a little timely instruction 
as to the laws of health, a knowledge of what she is fit for, 
married or unmarried. Xowadays a girl's education ends 
just as she is beginning to unfold, and her mind, which 
had begun to bud, too often slowly withers or narrows, or 
becomes a blank. Marriage comes upon her unprepared, 
or single life; and perhaps family misfortune, penury, 
comes upon her still more unprepared. What is she to do? 
She is not fit to teach. She has never been properly taught 
herself. This writer continues : Let girls take a serious 
interest in art ; let them take up some congenial study, let 



428 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

it be a branch of science or history. Let them write. 
They can do almost anything they try to do, but let their 
mothers never rest until they have implanted in their 
daughters' lives one growing interest beyond flirtation and 
gossip, whether it be work at the easel, music, literature, 
the structure of the human body and the laws of health, 
any solid interest that will occupy their thoughts and their 
hearts. Idleness, frivolity, and ignorance can only be put 
down by education and employment. In the last resort 
the spirit of evil becomes teacher and taskmaster. 

There would not be so many opposers to the higher cul- 
ture of women, if its objects were better understood, but 
many persons, many parents even, are opposing its advo- 
cates on the ground that the objects sought are those which 
the late Reverend Charles Kingsley stated them to be in 
one of his essays, namely : To make girls read more books, 
and do more sums, and pass examinations, and stoop over 
desks, and study Latin, and even Greek. No, these are 
not the objects of the higher culture of women. By one 
of Mr. Kingsley's own papers we shall try to show what 
some of the objects are. He asks, Do you know anything 
about education, of which the Greeks have not taught us 
at least the rudiments? To produce health, that is, har- 
mony and sympathy, proportion and grace*, in every faculty 
of mind and body — that was their notion of education. 

This is one of the first ends that the advocates of the 
higher culture of women are aiming to attain. Dismissing 
all " vague sentiments," " wild aspirations,"' and " Utopian 
dreams," they start on the practical basis that not only 
money and comfort, but health and life, are dependent 
upon a higher form of culture, a more thorough course of 
education than is now the standard. Not more branches 
of study, but fewer, and a more thorough comprehension 
of those pursued. Not alone is each individual woman's 



429 

health and life dependent upon the kind and the degree of 
instruction and education that she receives, but the health 
and the lives of untold numbers. In proportion as she knows 
the laws and nature of a subject, she will be able to work 
at it easily, surely, rapidly, successfully, instead of wasting 
her energies in mistaken schemes and irregular efforts, which 
end in disappointment and exhaustion. Knowledge of 
sanitary laws saves health and life; knowledge of the laws 
of intellect saves wear and tear of brain ; and knowledge 
of the laws of the spirit — what does it not save ? 

A well-educated moral sense, a well-regulated character, 
saves from idleness and ennui, alternating with sentimen- 
tality and excitement ; it saves from excess those tenderer 
emotions, those deeper passions, those nobler aspirations, 
which are the heritage of the woman far more than of the 
man, and which are potent in her, for evil or for good, in 
proportion as they are left to run wild and undisciplined, 
or are trained and developed into graceful, harmonious, 
self-restraining strength, beautiful in itself, and a blessing 
to all who come under its influence. 

It is not the wish of the advocates of the higher culture 
of woman's powers, to withdraw her from her existing 
spheres of interest and activity, but rather to fit women for 
the more enlightened performance of their special duties, 
to help them toward learning how to do better what they 
have to do, whether as members of society alone, or in the 
higher walks of a mother's or a teacher's duties, or in any 
of the arts or professions which may be chosen by them. 

The work that many women are doing nobly now, with- 
out instruction, how much more nobly and efficiently would 
they be able to do it if they had been taught. In America, 
more than in any other land, it is necessary that women 
should be taught the meaning of the words capital, profit, 
price, value, labor, wages, and of the relation between 



430 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

these last two. If they become housekeepers, how many 
mistakes, anxieties, worries, which eat out the health as 
Avell as the heart, would they be saved from by a little 
sound knowledge of the principles of political economy. 
As orphans and widows possessing means, how many dis- 
agreeable experiences, how many losses, how much offend- 
ing might be avoided by a knowledge of the laws of busi- 
ness. Is it any wonder that men complain that woman's 
intellect is not fit for business; that when a woman takes 
to business she is apt to do it ill and unpleasantly likewise ; 
to be more suspicious, more irritable, more grasping, more 
unreasonable than honorable men of business would be; 
that a a woman does not fight fair?" Rather is it not to 
be wondered at that she should get through as well as she 
does what she undertakes, having had no special training 
for it? She does not know the rules of the game she is 
playing, and, therefore, she is playing it in the dark, in fear 
and suspicion, when a little sound knowledge would have 
set her head and her heart at rest. 

And for those young women, so rapidly increasing in 
number, who have to take care of themselves, with no 
means of so doing provided for them, how necessary it is 
that whatever studies they undertake should be pursued 
with thoroughness. In the rapid transitions of fortune 
that take place in America, what parent can tell whether 
his daughters will be found in the ranks of the applicants 
for work, or among those who, in happy and luxuriant 
homes, train for eternity the immortal souls that are given 
as a sacred trust into the mother's keeping? And here come 
in, with all their solemn teachings, the laws of life, of 
health, of hygiene. What lamentable ignorance is shown 
upon the part of those parents and instructors who seek to 
keep such information from the young whom they have in 
charge. " A little knowledge is a dangerous thing/' they 



431 

say. It is false. A little knowledge is better than none. 
It leads the way to more, for the quest of knowledge is one 
that, once entered upon, continues while life lasts, and is 
carried by the spirit Into the life beyond the grave. Teach 
the young mother to understand that when she sends her 
child out with insufficient clothing, and he is brought back 
to her chilled through, that his vitality, his power of re- 
sisting disease (diphtheria, croup — whatever it may be) is 
wasted ; that the food which should have gone to keep the 
vital heat at its normal standard is spent in making up the 
loss. Show her that she may, by taking the necessary pre- 
cautions, save the life of her child ; that she must not take 
him thus chilled to the fire, or into a room highly heated, 
but that by gentle exercise or friction she must restore the 
circulation, and in using such precautions she may ward off 
the attack of disease that would surely follow if they were 
neglected. The same in her own case ; these truths are as 
applicable to the mature as to the young. Well has Dr. 
Clarke said, " Let Eve take a wise care of the temple God 
made for her, and Adam of the one made for him, and 
both will enter upon a career whose glory and beauty no 
seer has foretold, or poet sung." 

But in order to take this care she must have that in- 
struction in physiological laws which is requisite. Kingsley 
states that more human beings are killed in England every 
year by unnecessary and preventable diseases than were 
killed at AVaterloo or at Sadowa ; and that the great ma- 
jority of these victims are children. 

It is the wheels of the juggernaut Ignorance that crushes 
out the life of these tender holocausts; for the diseases 
which carry them off are, for the most part, such as ought 
to be specially under the control of the women who love 
them, pet them, educate them, and who would in many 
cases, if need be, lay down their lives for them. 



432 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Again, simple ignorance of the laws of ventilation in 
sleeping-rooms and in school-rooms produces a vast amount 
of disease. From ignorance of signs of approaching dis- 
ease, children are often punished for idleness, listiessness, 
sulkiness, wilfulness, in the unwisest way — by confinement 
to a room, perhaps, and an increase of tasks; when what 
they really need is more oxygen and more exercise, and 
less study. These forms of ignorance have, times with- 
out number, resulted in malignant typhus and brain fevers. 
A little knowledge of the laws, to the neglect of which is 
owing so much fearful disease (which, if it does not pro- 
duce immediate death, too often leaves the constitution im- 
paired for years to come), would spare this waste of health 
and strength in the young ; the waste, too, of anxiety and 
misery in those who love and tend them. If instead of 
the trashy accomplishments upon which so much of the 
school-girl's time is expended, a little rational instruction 
should be given in these laws of nature, how different the 
result would be ; how many precious lives might be spared 
to those who, like Rachel of old, refuse to be comforted 
because of the children which were, and are not! how 
many frail shrines of immortality might have become 
strong and beautiful temples of the soul ! We are as much 
bound to know and to obey the laws of nature, on which 
depends the welfare of our bodies, as we are bound to know 
and obey the spiritual laws, whereon depends the welfare 
of our souls. Even the welfare of the soul, in one sense, 
depends upon the welfare of the body ; for no spiritual 
life can be developed to its highest degree of attainment 
unless the body be developed to its highest. 

The girl who has her intellect, her taste, her emotions, 
her moral sense — in a word, her whole womanhood, so 
cultivated and regulated that she shall be able to discern 
the true from the false, so that she shall stand in fear of 



woman's higher culture. 433 

no other censure tlian that of her own mind and heart, 
will be ready for the faithful performance of the work of 
life, whatever that may be ; while the one who is allowed 
to grow up ignorant, frivolous, luxurious, vain, idle, will 
be fitted for no state of existence, and will', sooner or later, 
unless self-education comes in to repair the neglect of 
parents and teachers, reach a time of vacuity all but de- 
spair, in which the immortal spirit, finding no healthy as- 
pirations, is but too likely to betake itself to unholy ex- 
citements ; or, ashamed of its own self-indulgence, flees 
from itself into morbid asceticism, or to self-invented and 
unnatural duties out of the world. The misunderstandings, 
quarrels, rumors, slanders, and scandals tha* bring so much 
distress into families, and even into communities, arise 
more frequently from a defect in training than from any 
real badness of heart. There is but one sort of education 
that will correct this defect, and that is an education that 
will teach them to observe facts accurately, judge them 
calmly, and describe them carefully, without adding or 
distorting:. Some training in natural science can alone 
accomplish this desirable end. A man of science, simply 
because his mind has been trained to deal with facts, is 
able to repeat what he sees and hears as he sees and hears 
it, because the leading features are strongly and clearly 
imprinted on his memory. His eyes and ears are not 
governed by his feelings, so that he only sees and hears 
what he wishes to see and hear. 

Thus it is seen that not alone for themselves, not for 
their own sakes merely, should women seek a higher edu- 
cation of their faculties and powers, but for the sake of 
others, for the sake of the communities in which they live, 
for the sake of the homes in which they are ministering 
spirits, and for the sake of those other homes in lowly life, 
to which they owe duties as well as to their own; for as 

28 



434 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the same arts and sciences which, ministering to the pride 
of nations, invariably hasten their ruin, do but exalt the 
strength and quicken the soul of every nation which em- 
ploys them to increase the comforts of the laboring classes, 
and to grace with intelligence the unambitious courses of 
honorable toil, so do those who minister to the comfort of 
their kind, perfect and exalt their own souls. Is there a 
reader of this compilation who has not already learned one 
of the great lessons of life as taught by Adelaide Procter? 

" As material life is planned, 
Even the loneliest one must stand 
Dependent on his brother's hand. 

"So links more subtle and so fine 
Bind every other soul to thine 
In one great brotherhood divine. 



" Nor with thy share of work be vexed ; 
Though incomplete and e'en perplext, 
It fits exactly to the next.'' 

Not the happiness of life, perhaps, but its blessedness is 
learned in living for others ; and, as Kingsley says, it is 
the glory of woman that for this end she was sent into the 
world, to live for others rather than for herself; to live, 
yes, and often to die for them. Let her never be persuaded 
to forget that she is sent into the world to teach man that 
there is something more necessary than the claiming of 
rights, and that is the performing of duties ; to teach him 
also that her rights should be respected, and her Avrongs 
redressed; that her education should be such as to draw 
out her powers of mind to their best advantage and their 
fullest extent : that there is yet something more than in- 
tellect, and that is, purity and virtue. Surely this is 
woman's calling — to teach man; to teach him, after all, 
that his calling is the same as hers, if he will but see the 



woman's higher culture. 435 

tbiDgs that belong to his peace; to temper his fiercer, 
coarser, more self-assertive nature, by the contact of her 
gentleness, purity, self-sacrifice ; to make him see that not 
by blare of trumpets, not by noise, wrath, greed, hatred, 
ambition, intrigue, puffery, prejudice, bigotry, is good and 
lasting work to be done on earth ; but by helpful hands, 
by sympathizing hearts, by wise self-distrust, by silent 
labor, by lofty self-control, by that greatest of all virtues, 
that charity which hopeth all things, believeth all things, 
endureth all things, by such an example in short, as 
women now, in tens of thousands of homes, set to those 
around them ; such as they will show more and more, in 
proportion as their whole womanhood is educated to em- 
ploy its powers without waste and without haste in harmo- 
nious unity. 

Let her begin girlhood, if such be her happy lot, to 
quote fiora Wordsworth : 

" With all things round about her drawn 
From May-time and the cheerful dawn ; 
A dancing shape, an image gay, 
To haunt, to startle, and waylay." 



Let her develop onward : 

"A spirit, yet a woman, too, 
With household motions light and free, 
And steps of virgin liberty. 
A countenance in which shall meet 
Sweet records, promises as sweet ; 
A creature not too bright and good 
For human nature's daily food ; 
For transient sorrows, simple wiles, 
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles." 

But let her highest and final development be that which 



436 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

not nature, but self- education alone can bring, that which 
makes her once and forever : 

" A being breathing thoughtful breath ; 
A traveller betwixt life and death. 
With reason firm, with temperate will, 
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill, 
A perfect woman, nobly planned, 
To warn, to comfort, and command. 
And yet a spirit still and bright, 
"With something of an angel light." 

Let the higher culture of women be undertaken and 
carried out with such ends in view, and in another genera- 
tion some of the most perplexing problems of social science 
will be solved. "Good teachers make good scholars, but 
it is only mothers that form men," cannot too often be 
repeated ; for in this truth Aime-Martin gives us the key 
to the reformation of mankind. 

Napoleon one day said to Madame Campan : "The old 
systems of education are good for nothing. What is 
wanting to train up young people properly in France?" 
" Mothers/' said Madame Campan. This word struck the 
Emperor. " Right/' said he ; " therein lies a complete 
system of education, and it must be your endeavor, 
madame, to form mothers who know how to educate their 
children." 



DEAD LAWS. 437 



CHAPTER XV. 

DEAD LAWS — DISINTERESTED LIVES — AUTHORS AND CRITICS — 
LOVE OF APPROBATION — REFORMERS — LEADERS. 

" He is my hero first of all, 

Though spear nor sword he wield, 
Who holds the Wrong his only foe, 

The Right his only shield ; 
Who dares to battle for the Truth, 

Though Error on her side 
Has gathered hosts, and shakes in wrath 

Her pinions far and wide. 
For though he win but for one truth, 

When martyrdom is passed, 
His victory is for his race, 

As long as time shall last! " 

" That Law, Religion, and Manners are related ; that their respective 
kinds of operation come under one generalization ; that they have in 
certain contrasted characteristics of men a common support and a 
common danger, will, however, be most clearly seen on discovering 
that they have a common origin. Little as from present appearances 
we should suppose it, we shall yet find that at first the control of 
religion, the control of laws, and the control of manners, were all 
one control. However incredible it may now seem, we believe it to 
be demonstrable that the rules of etiquette, the provisions of the 
statute-book, and the commands of the decalogue, have grown from 

the same root Law and religion control behavior in its 

essentials ; manners control it in its detail*. 

" Submission, whether to a government, to the dogmas of ecclesias- 
tics, or to that code of behavior which society at large has set up, is 
essentially of the same nature, and the sentiment which induces re- 
sistance to the despotism of rules, civil or spiritual, likewise induces 
resistance to the despotism of the world's opinion. Look at them 
fundamentally, and all enactments alike of the legislature, the con- 
sistory, and the saloon — all regulations, formal or virtual, have a 
common character ; they are all limitations of men's freedom. < Do 



438 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

this — refrain from that,' are the blank formulas with which they 
may all be written, and in each case the understanding is that obe- 
dience will bring approbation here and Paradise hereafter; while 
disobedience will entail imprisonment, or sending to Coventry, or 
eternal torments, as the case may be. And if restraints, however 
named, and through whatever apparatus or means exercised, are one 
in their action upon men, it must happen that those who are patient 
under one kind of restraint, are likely to be patient under another; 
and conversely, that those impatient of restraint in general, will, on 
the average, tend to show their impatience in all directions 

" Manners originate by the imitation of the behavior pursued to- 
ward the great. Fashion originates by imitation of the great. As 
the strong men, the successful men, the men of will, intelligence, and 
originality, who have got to the top, are, on the average, more likely 
to show judgment in their habits and tastes than the mass; the 
imitation of such is advantageous. 

u By and by, however, Fashion, corrupting like other forms of rule, 
almost wholly ceases to be an imitation of quite other than the best. 

" The self-elected clique who set the fashion, gain this prerogative,, 
not by their force of nature, their intellect, their higher worth, or 
better taste, but gain it solely by their unchecked assumption. 
Among the initiated are to be found neither the noblest, the chief in 
power, the best cultured, the most refined, nor those of greatest 
genius, wit, or beauty ; and their reunions, so far from being superior 
to others, are noted for their inanity. Yet, by the example of these 
sham great, and not by that of the truly great, does society at large 
now regulate its goings and comings, its hours, its dress, its small 
usages. As a natural consequence, these have generally little or none 
of that suitableness which the theory of fashion implies they should 
have. But instead of a continual progress towards greater elegance 
and convenience, which might bo expected to occur did people cop}' 
the ways of the really best, or follow their own ideas of propriety, we 
have a reign of usages without meaning, times without fitness, and 
of wanton oscillations from one extreme to the other." — Origin of Law, 
Religion, and Manners. 

In these remarks of Herbert Spencer, is found one reason 
why some sensible people in America rebel at many of the 
ordinances of society, and seek to do away with senseless 
customs, while adopting others which are better suited to 
our mode of life. 



DEAD LAWS. 439 

Xow that -society is so greatly enlarged since the days of 
our grandmothers, we have noi time to carry out rules 
prescribed for those days. Take, for instance, the custom, 
now almost obsolete, of calling in person upon every family 
included in a visiting list before sending out invitations 
for a party or a ball. The rule was made in old-school 
days, in order that those acquaintances that were not in- 
cluded should not feel "dropped" by the one sending out 
the invitations, and is still considered a binding one by 
some, who carry their resentment so far as to remain away 
from an entertainment which has not been heralded by the 
avant-courier of a card, thus showing an utter want of 
appreciation of the spirit and meaning of the card. For 
now, if left at all, they should certainly not be required at 
the houses of those who are invited. ~No hostess who en- 
tertains frequently has any time to spare for carrying out 
such rules, and if sensible and independent she will not 
regard them. Even w T hen this rule has been observed, 
there have been found among those who received the card 
of the caller, followed by no invitation, numbers who have 
expressed their surprise at not being included among the 
expected guests, when, perhaps, there was no occasion for 
surprise, if all the attendant circumstances were taken into 
consideration. Thus, when the use has continued beyond 
the memory of its object, it must eventually drop off, like 
the dead leaves from the bud, when they have served their 
uses. 

A singular example of this fact is found in the adoption 
by other than army and navy men, of cockades on the 
hats of their coachmen and footmen ; the two forms, or 
modes, distinguishing the " turn-out " of the army officer 
from that of the naval officer. Their former significance 
is now in a fair way of being entirely lost, from their adop- 
tion by civilians as a badge of livery for their servants. 



440 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

The same with the light cloth livery. Tlio time was 
that one could tell whether the occupants of a passing 
carriage were bound for a dusty country drive, or whether 
they were on a calling or shopping excursion. Now the 
livery of light cloth is sometimes adopted for the winter 
use of servants as well as for their summer wear, for town 
driving as well as for country excursions. 

For another example of the falling off or dropping of a 
custom, by the adoption of a new one, it may be mentioned 
that formerly all cards sent at the time of wedding or other 
receptions, by resident invited guests, who were unable to 
attend, were delivered in person, or by friends who were 
going to these receptions, or sent in by servants "unin- 
closed." Now, since the observance of this rule has be- 
come too onerous, by reason of our more extended circle of 
acquaintance, and offices have been established where mes- 
senger boys can be obtained, such cards are often delivered 
by them, and must necessarily be inclosed to prevent the 
cards from being delivered in a soiled condition. As custom 
now sanctions the use of cards in a manner which was 
once considered wanting in respect, the old rule must drop 
out of use. The rule, however, is still held quite as bind- 
ing between residents exchanging cards, or calls, and is 
adopted only for the greater convenience of persons who 
are not able to make their appearance on the stated day 
of a reception, and for those who send P. P. C. cards, as 
well as for gentlemen in business who have no leisure to 
make morning calls in acknowledgment of hospitalities 
extended. For such the post is preferable to messenger 
boys. 

Still another illustration may be cited, in the wearing of 
veils by ladies at day receptions, and in making calls. It 
is no longer considered discourteous not to remove the veil 
when entering a house ; the need of doing so having gone 



DEAD LAWS. 441 

out with the adoption of sheer lace veils. In the days of 
our mothers it was not easy to recognize the face of a 
friend, under the veil covered with needle- work, that was 
then worn ; and consequently, had ladies been permitted 
to sit with their veils over their faces, it would have been 
as disagreeable for the lady receiving them as if her callers 
wore masks, while she herself remained unmasked. When 
the need goes by, the rule that was made to meet it should 
pass away with it, and not be provincial ly clung to after 
the manner of sticklers for forms and ceremonies. 

In this way maybe recognized the meaning, the natural- 
ness, the necessity of the various eccentricities of reformers. 
They are not accidental ; they are not mere personal ca- 
prices, as people are apt to suppose. On the contrary, 
they are inevitable results of the law of relationship, and 
lead in fashion as in religion to the ignoring of senseless 
dictates, and to the emancipation from dead customs in 
the former as from dead creeds in the latter, says Spencer. 
This discipline of circumstances which has already 
wrought out such great changes in us must go on even- 
tually to work out yet greater ones. That daily curbing 
of the lower nature and culture of the higher, which out 
of cannibals and devil worshippers has evolved philanthro- 
pists, lovers of peace, and haters of superstition, cannot fail 
to evolve out of these, men as much superior to them as 
they are to their progenitors. As it is now needless to for- 
bid man-eating and fetishism, so will it ultimately become 
needless to forbid murder, theft, and the minor offences of 
our criminal code. "When human nature hasgrown into con- 
formity with the moral law, there will be no need of judges 
or statute-books; when it spontaneously takes the right 
course in all things, as in some things it does already, pros- 
pects of future reward or punishment will not be wanted 
as incentives, and when jit behavior has become instinctive. 



442 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

there will be no need of a code of ceremonies to say how be- 
havior shall be regulated. For it is behavior which is the 
vital bud; and forms and ceremonies sustain the same 
relation to it, as do the unfolding and decaying leaves 
of the calyx which drop off, leaving the fruit behind. 
Those most learned in ceremonies and most precise in the 
observance of them, are not always the best behaved ; just 
as lawyers are of all men the least noted for probity, and 
those deepest read in creeds and scriptures are not therefore 
the most religious. 

Still it is necessary that there should be some conformity 
to prescribed rules, even in dress, if for no other reason than 
for the comfort and peace of mind of the wearer. Take, 
for instance, a young man who enters a drawing-room in 
evening dress in daylight, finding himself the only gentle- 
man present not in morning dress ; or, wearing a frock- 
coat in the evening, finds himself the only one not in 
evening dress. His enjoyment of the evening is greatly 
diminished, yet this ought not to be so. It in no way 
interferes with the pleasure or comfort of the hostess or 
her guests, and but for the annoyance of the wearer, all 
would have been as if he had worn the prescribed dress. 
Here, and in similar cases, the professed reformer comes in 
with the work that he seeks to aid in doing ; for to the 
true reformer, no institution is sacred, no custom beyond 
criticism. Everything shall conform itself to equity and 
reason ; nothing shall be saved by its prestige. He con- 
sents to no restrictions save those which other men's equal 
claims involve. Whether the penalty for disobedience be 
frowns or social ostracism, he sees to be a question of no 
moment. He will utter his belief notwithstanding the 
threatened punishment, he will break conventions spite of 
the petty persecutions that will be visited on him. But 
show him that his actions are inimical to his fellow-man 



THE CONVENTION BREAKER. 443 

and he will pause. Prove that he is disregarding their 
legitimate claims — that he is doing what in the nature 
of things must produce unhappiness, and he will alter 
his course. Until you do this, until you demonstrate that 
his proceedings are essentially inconvenient or inelegant, 
essentially irrational, unjust or ungenerous, he will perse- 
vere. 

If it be urged that he is not justified in breaking through 
others' forms that he may establish different ones, and so 
sacrificing the wishes of many to his own wishes, he replies 
that all religious and political changes might be negatived 
on like grounds. He asks whether Luther's sayings and 
doings were not extremely offensive to the mass of his con- 
temporaries; whether the resistance of Hampden was not 
disgusting to the timeservers around him; whether every 
reformer has not shocked men's prejudices; thus proving 
that, to be consistent, his antagonist must condemn not only 
all nonconformity in actions, but all nonconformity in 
thoughts. They may then rejoin, that if a man may offend 
by the disregard of some forms, he may as legitimately 
do so by the disregard of all. The convention-breaker 
answers, that to ask this implies a confounding of two 
widely different classes of actions, — the actions that are 
essentially displeasurable to those around, with the actions 
that are but incidentally displeasurable to them. He who 
goes to dinner in a dirty shirt, or with unwashed hands, 
or he who talks so loudly as to disturb a whole room, may 
be justly complained of, and rightly excluded by society 
from its assemblies. But ho who presents himself in a 
frock-coat in place of a dress-coat, gives offence, not to 
mens senses or their innate tastes, but merely to their 
prejudices or their bigotry of convention. Therefore, as 
the man so offending is the only one that suffers from his 
violation of prescribed rules, the only effect should be in 



444 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the avoidance of exposing himself to like annoyances in 
the future. Thus the reformer explains that it m not 
against the necessary restraints, but against the needless 
ones that he protests; and that manifestly the fire of sneers 
and angry glances which he has to bear, is poured upon 
him because he will judge and act for himself. 

Should he be asked how we are to distinguish between 
conduct that is absolutely disagreeable to others, and con- 
duct that is relatively so, he answers, that they will dis- 
tinguish themselves, if men will let them. Actions intrin- 
sically repugnant will establish themselves as proper. The 
dislike of dirt would continue were Fashion abolished to- 
morrow. Self-respect and love of approbation would still 
cause people to wish to dress and to appear en regie, and to 
respect the natural laws of good behavior, as they now do 
the artificial ones. The change would be for the better. 
The dislike with which people commonly speak of society 
that is "formal" and " stiff," and "ceremonious," implies 
the fact that artificial observances tend to extinguish that 
agreeable communion which they were originally intended 
to secure. 

But it is not only in these details that the self-defeating 
action of our arrangements is traceable ; it is traceable in 
the very substance and nature of them. Our social inter- 
course, as commonly managed, is a mere semblance of the 
reality sought. What is it that we want? Some sympa- 
thetic converse with our fellow-creatures ; some converse 
that shall not be dead words, but the vehicle of living 
thoughts and feelings — converse in which the eyes and the 
face shall speak, and the tones of the voice be full of mean- 
ing — converse which shall make us feel no longer alone, 
but shall draw us closer to another, and double our own 
emotions by adding another's to them. Mark the words 
of Bacon : " For a crowd is not a company, and faces arc 



REFORMS. 445 

but a gallery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal, 
where there is no love." 

In general society assemblages you need but look around 
at the artificial expressions of face, to see at once how it is. 
All have their disguises on, and how can there be sym- 
pathy between masks? No wonder that, in private, every 
one exclaims against the stupidity of most of these gather- 
ings. No wonder that hostesses get them up rather because 
they must, than because they wish. No wonder that the 
invited go less from the expectation of pleasure than from 
fear of giving offence. What is the usual plea put in for 
giving and attending these tedious assemblages ? "I admit 
that they are stupid and frivolous enough, " replies every 
man to your criticisms; "but then, you know, one must 
keep up one's connections with the world." And could you 
get sincere answers from the wives and mothers, would 
they not often be, "Like you, I am sick of these frivolities; 
but then we must get our daughters married." The one 
knows that there is a profession to push, a practice to gain, 
a business to extend, or political influence to secure, or 
positions, berths, favors, profits. The other's thoughts run 
upon a suitable marriage, as the only desirable destiny for 
their daughters; and thus social intercourse is kept up 
almost entirely with a view to the pecuniary and matri- 
monial results which they indirectly produce. 

Who shall then say that the reform of our system of 
observances is unimportant? When we take into consid- 
eration all the evil that it works, besides its blighting in- 
fluence on that enjoyment, which is a chief end of our hard 
struggling in life to obtain — shall we not conclude that to 
reform our system of etiquette and fashion, is an aim 
yielding to few in urgency ? 

Institutions that have lost their roots in men's needs are 
doomed, and the day of their dissolution is not far off. 



446 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

The time is approaching, then, when our system of social 
observances must pass through some crisis, out of which 
it will come purified and comparatively simple. 

How this crisis will come about no one can, with any 
certainty, say. In the meantime, the convention-breaker 
finds that he pays too heavily for his nonconformity. He 
does not like to have his unconventionalities put down to 
ignorance, ill-breeding, or poverty. He starts with the 
idea that it will save him from a great deal of social in- 
tercourse of a frivolous kind — that he will get rid of the 
fools, and retain only the sensible people, serving as a self- 
acting test by which those worth knowing would be sep- 
arated from those not worth knowing. But the fools 
prove to be so greatly in the majority that, by offending 
them, he closes against himself nearly all the avenues 
through which the sensible people are to be reached. 

Abortive as individual protests generally turn out, it 
may possibly be that nothing effectual will be done until 
there arises some organized resistance to this invisible 
despotism, by which our minds and habits are dictated. 
Alike the Church and State, men's first emancipations 
from excess of restriction were achieved by numbers, 
bound together by a common creed, or a common political 
faith. What remained undone while there were individual 
schismatics or rebels, was effected when there came to be 
many acting in concert. 

That community of origin, growth, supremacy, and de- 
cadence, found among all kinds of government, suggests a 
community in modes of change also. On the other hand, 
nature often performs substantially similar operations, in 
ways apparently different. Hence these details can never 
be foretold. 

Society, in all its developments, undergoes the process 
of exuviation. These old forms which it successively 



PUBLIC OPINION. 447 

throws off, have all been once vitally united with it — have 
severally served as the protective envelopes within which 
a higher humanity was being evolved. They are cast 
aside only when they become hindrances — only when 
some inner and better envelope has been formed, be- 
queathing to us all that there was in them that is good. 
The periodical abolition of tyrannical laws has left the ad- 
ministration of justice not only uninjured, but purified. 
Dead and buried creeds have not carried with them the 
essential morality they contained, which still exists, un- 
contaminated by the laws of superstition. And all that 
there is of justice, and kindness, and beauty, embodied in 
our forms of etiquette, will live perennially when the 
forms themselves have been forgotten. 

Let the world go as it pleases, says an ingenious writer, 
" To live happily, it is an excellent maxim to take things 
just as they are." Such a course may be politic, but it is 
one which produces nothing good. The powers of the 
human soul are more extensive than they are in general 
imagined to be; and he who feels its divine energy mov- 
ing within him, turns with abhorrence from all that tends 
to diminish or impair its operations. Although constrained 
by the duties of Tiis situation, it may be, to mix in the in- 
tercourses of society, he cannot do so without seeing how 
the dignity of his own character is hazarded by associating 
with those who consult upon every occasion the oracle of 
public opinion — so infallible in their ideas — before they 
know what to think, or in what manner their judgment 
should be formed, or their conduct regulated. Weak 
minds, says Zimmerman, always conceive it most safe to 
adopt the sentiments of the multitude. Its decisions, 
whether upon men or things, they implicitly follow, with- 
out giving themselves the trouble to inquire who is right, 
or on which side truth lies. The spirit of truth and equity, 



448 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

indeed, are only to be expected from those who are fearless 
of the imperious voice of fashion, when its dictates are 
senseless and absurd. That superiority of genius which 
enables its possessor to command events dwells in no sub- 
servient soul. Such a one will go through life, studying 
both men and manners, making observations which confirm 
a truth or refute a prejudice, unveiling and stripping of 
its false glare the whole system of life, and boldly and 
publicly announcing, as the occasion may require, that 
which a weak mind would tremble to think of. 

The saying : " All reformers end by becoming martyrs," 
has passed into a proverb. However, even martyrdom 
has its redeeming points. Those who have once endured 
it, though only a social martyrdom, such as any one is liable 
to encounter who moves in any social reform, are liable to 
rise through it, if they will, into a higher atmosphere. 

Social reforms may seem of too small moment to speak 
of iii connection with martyrdom, but as there is no de- 
scription of torture that can equal that of the prolonged 
dropping of water upon the head, men will succumb to 
like small things, who would have walked up to the scaf- 
fold with fortitude of soul and unflinching nerves. Happy 
he who survives the torture, and reaches the plane of life 
from which he can look down upon the clamoring crowd, 
and feel himself far above their reach. 

Of the many souls that are ever reaching forward to at- 
tain this height, sometimes dwelling upon it, yet often led 
down from it by the temptations that assail humanity, none 
hold a more secure possession than do they who have 
learned to look with compassion upon their assailers. 
None who harbor hatred or revenge in their hearts can ever 
hope to find a foothold there. Nor is it a place for idlers. 
Work is one of the conditions of occupancy. The man 
whose carefully furrowed and planted field is sown with 



DISINTERESTED LIVES. 449 

tares by his enemy while its owner sleeps, and who, lis- 
tening not to the voice of the mistaken friend calling to 
him, "You have planted your seed, let it go; nothing that 
is good ever dies," bends himself to the Herculean task, of 
pulling up by the roots, every prickly, stinging tare, while 
the crowd gathers with derisive laughter, mocking him at 
his work — that man is for the time being on a plane be- 
yond the reach of his detractors. They may represent 
him as working for the greed of gold, and for aggrandize- 
ment of self, but conscious of the motives that inspire 
him, he finds " meat to eat that the world knows not of," 
as during the blazing hours of midday he toils on, remem- 
bering that the full rich sheaves of an abundant harvest 
are promised only to those who are faithful to the end. 
To the sordid, the mean, the base, it may really seem that 
he is working to fill his own granary, for, as Spurgeon says 
in one of his sermons, " If you live the most devoted and 
disinterested life possible, you will find people sneering at 
you, and imputing your actions to selfish motives, and put- 
ting a cruel construction on all you do or say. Well, it 
does not matter, for we shall all be manifested at the judg- 
ment seat of Christ, before God and man and angels. Let 
us live to please him, for our integrity of motive will be 
known at the last, and put beyond all dispute;" 

Had Mr. Spurgeon said, " Well, it does not matter, for if 
we lead disinterested lives here we shall have the conscious- 
ness of the integrity of our motives, and learn how God 
makes all things (even slanders and sneers) work together 
for our good," he would have given expression to what 
Carl vie calls the highest wisdom that heaven has revealed 

to man. 

" No evils touch us save by God's blessed will, 
"Who turns e'en sin to work his purpose still." 

It is worth some suffering to learn this great lesson of 

29 



450 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

life, for when once learned, submission and endurance are 
made easy. 

Yet Kingsley spoke truly when he said, "We are all too 
apt to be the puppets of circumstances ; all too apt to fol- 
low the fashion ; all too apt, like so many minnows, to take 
our color from the ground on which we lie, in hopes, like 
them, of comfortable concealment, lest the new tyrant deity 
called public opinion should spy us out, and like Nebu- 
chadnezzar of old, cast us into a burning fiery furnace — 
which public opinion can make very hot — for daring to 
worship any god or man save the will of the temporary 
majority. It is difficult for any souls but heroic ones to 
be anything but poor, mean, insufficient, imperfect people, 
as like each other as so many sheep ; and like so many 
sheep, having no will or character of our own, but rush- 
ing altogether blindly over the same gap, in foolish fear of 
the same dog, who after all, dare not bite us ; and so it 
always was, and always will be. 

' Unless above himself he can 
Exalt himself, how poor a thing is man.' " 

But, nevertheless, any man or woman who will, can 
live a heroic life and exercise heroic influences, in any age, 
and under any circumstances. But he ought to have, he 
must have, justice, self-restraint, and that highest form of 
modesty for which we have, alas ! no name in the English 
tongue ; that perfect respect for the feelings of others which 
springs out of perfect self-respect. True heroism involves 
self-sacrifice, but it must be voluntary ; a work of super- 
errogation, at least toward society and men — an act to 
which the hero or heroine is not bound by duty, but which 
is above, though not against duty. Every motive which 
springs from self is, by its very essence, unheroic; but the 
love of approbation, the desire for the love and respect of 



DISINTERESTED LIVES. 451 

our fellow-men, must not be excluded from the list of 
heroic motives. ~No man excludes it less than that true 
hero, St. Paul. It is only the depraved, the hardened, the 
shameless, who are indifferent to the opinion of their fellow- 
men. Men and women of refinement, of pure lives, and 
of sensitive organizations, never become indifferent. It is 
not that they live for the good opinion of men, shaping 
their acts for approbation, but it is because love and trust 
are the only mother-milk of any man's soul. Ruskin 
denies the truth of Lowell's lines — 

" Disappointment's dry and bitter root, 
Envy's harsh berries, and the choking pool 
Of the world's scorn, are the right mother-milk 
To the tough hearts that pioneer their kind ;" 

but all experience shows us that both Ruskin and Lowell 
are right. 

Difficulties are the tutors and monitors of men, placed 
in their path for their best discipline and development. 
As by the law of selection the weak physically succumb 
to hardships that the strong survive, so the resolute soul 
finds a stimulus in the bitter roots and the harsh berries 
that would act as poison upon the timid soul. 

Just as true is it that so far as a man or a woman is 
misrepresented, mistrusted, and shunned, so far are his and 
her powers destroyed. Do not think that you can sneer 
and crush them into the best service they can do you. 
They will not serve you for pay, they cannot serve you for 
scorn. But although no pay is receivable by any true 
man or true woman who is working for the interest of 
humanity, power is receivable in the kindness that may be 
given to them. So far only as you give them these can 
they serve you; that is the meaning of the question, " Be- 
lievest thou that I am able?" And from every one who 



452 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

liveth not for himself but for others — to the end of time — 
if you give them the Capernaum measure of faith, you shall 
have from them the Capernaum measure of works. Do 
not think that this is irreverently comparing great and 
small things. The system of the world is entirely one; 
small things pad great are alike part of one mighty whole. 
As the flower is gnawed by frost, so every human heart is 
gnawed by the chill of unmerited censure and unkindness. 
And as surely, as irrevocably, as the fruit-bed is blighted 
and falls before the east wind, so falls the power of the 
kindest human heart before the cold wind of misrepresen- 
tation, distrust, and calumny. No man's character can have 
room for development where jealousy and envy and pro- 
vincial feeling hedge him round, while he stands like a 
Bedouin, against whom every man's hand is raised to strike 
him down. It would be better for such a one to fly beyond 
the pale of civilized life than to live to have his soul 
dwarfed down to the size-ofUliejsouls that measure him by 
their own standards No man is^tinderstood excepting by 
his equal, or his superior. Men everywhere are too apt to 
judge the motives of others' actions by their own. Those 
who persistently attribute low and base and selfish motives 
to others, do so because such motives dwell in their own 
hearts. Only rare natures and noble souls, it is said, can 
endure this test of persistent misrepresentation and perver- 
sion of their motives ; for upon ordinary natures it acts like 
a goad, driving them into the frailties or the follies they 
are accused of. 

" Whoso mistakes me now but spurs me on to make 
My life so speak henceforth that no one can mistake," 

should be the motto of every youth who finds himself a 
target for the arrows of hatred and envy ; and if he does 
make this his rule of life, he will so outstrip others in the 



SUCCESS AND FAILURE. 453 

race as to get far beyond the reach of their arrows. Dickens 
showed his knowledge of human nature when he made 
Nicholas Nickleby say : " So these are some of the stories 
they invent about us, and bandy from mouth to mouth. 
If a man would commit an inexpiable offence against any 
society, large or small, let him be successful. They will 
forgive him anything but that." 

Casimir Perier's reply when accused of being an aris- 
tocrat, should encourage our young men to aim high in 
their efforts to secure success. He said, " My only aris- 
tocracy is the superiority which industry, frugality, perse- 
verance, and intelligence, will always insure to every man 
in a free state of society ; and I belong to those privileged 
classes to which you may all belong in your turn. They 
are not privileges created for us, but by us. Our wealth 
is our own, we have gained it by the sweat of our brows, 
or by the labor of our minds. Our position in society 
is not conferred upon us, but purchased by ourselves with 
our own intellect, application, zeal, patience, and industry. 
If you remain inferior to us, it is because you have not 
the talent, the industry, the zeal, or the sobriety, the pa- 
tience, or the application necessary to your advancement. 
You wish to become rich, as some do to become wise, but 
there is no royal road to wealth any more than there is to 
knowledge." 

In these words lies a lesson for our young people to pon- 
der over, and shape their ambitions by ; a lesson which all 
those who respect themselves and the rights of others have 
already learned. 

Let them also keep in mind the great truth taught in 
the parable of the sower, that God does not predestine 
men to fail, that the fault does not lie in God, the sower, 
that promises so often end in failure. 

On this subject, Reverend F. W. Robertson says : " Man 



454 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

shapes his own destiny. The ship is wrecked by the winds 
and the waves — hurried to its fate. But the winds and 
the waves were in truth its best friends. Rightly guided, 
it would have made use of them to reach the port • wrongly 
steered, they became the destiny which drove it on the 
rocks. Failure — the wreck of life — is not to be impiously 
traced to the will of God, who, although he can do any- 
thing, cannot do wrong, cannot make a contradiction true. 
It is a contradiction to let man be free, and to force him to 
do right. Without free-will there could be no human 
goodness, and once acknowledge free-will in man, and the 
origin of evil does not lie in God. In our own free-will, 
in the grand and fearful power we have to ruin ourselves, 
lies the only solution of the mystery of failure Gifts un- 
used or abused, God takes away from us. There is no such 
thing as standing still in the universe. We have to work 
out our own salvation with fear and trembling — to work 
out our own destiny with noble resolve and high endeavor. 
In doing this we have the help of One who is touched with 
our infirmities. There is not a single throb, in a single 
human bosom, that does not thrill at once with more than 
electric speed up to the mighty heart of God. You cannot 
shed a tear, or sigh a sigh, that does not come back to you, 
exalted and purified by having passed through the Eternal 
bosom." 

And w r e have the sympathy of One who was in all points 
tempted as we are tempted, one who learned sympathy by 
being tempted ; but it is by being tempted, yet without sin, 
that He is specially able to show mercy. He who has 
never been tried, and he who, having been tempted, has 
fallen under temptation, are both unfit for showing mercy. 
The young, un tempted and upright, are often severe 
judges, as are those who have themselves yielded to se- 
ducing sins. We should say that to have erred would 



SYMPATHY AND CHARITY. 455 

make a man lenient. It is not so. Both of these classes 
are for sanguinary punishment, for expelling the offender 
from the bosom of society. This truth is taught with 
deep significance in one of the incidents of the Redeemer's 
life. There stood in his presence a tempted woman, 
covered with the confusion of recent conviction ; and there 
stood beside her the sanctimonious religionists of that 
day, waiting like hell-hounds to be let loose upon their 
prey. Calm words came from the lips of Him, " who spake 
as man never spake," and whose heart felt as man never 
felt. " He that is without sin among you, let him first 
cast a stone." 

Sinners are not fit to judge of sin. Their justice is re- 
venge; their mercy is feebleness. He alone can judge of 
sin — he alone can attemper the sense of what is due to the 
offended law, with the remembrance of that which is due 
to human frailty — he alone is fit for showing manly mercy, 
who has, like his master, felt the power of temptation in its 
might, and come scatheless through the trial. 

" Man-like it is to yield to sin, 
Fiend-like it is to dwell therein, 
Christ-like it is for sin to grieve, 
God-like it is all sin to leave." 

Sympathy from the one who learned sympathy by being 
tempted, means grace to help in time of need. This is the 
blessing of the thought ; for by the sympathy of man, after 
all, the wound is not healed ; it is only stanched for a 
time. So far as permanent good goes, who has not felt the 
deep truth which Job taught his friends — " Miserable com- 
forters are ye all." 

When the world, with its thousand forms of temptation, 
seems to whisper to us, "Sell me thy birthright," this di- 
vine human sympathy comes to our aid; the inward voice 



456 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

speaks — " Shall I barter the abiding peace of blessedness 
for the passing thrill of pleasure ? The benediction of my 
father for the mess of pottage?" 

There are moments when we seem to tread above this 
earth, superior to its allurements, able to do without its 
kindness, bracing ourselves to do our work as Christ did 
his. Those moments are not the sunshine of life. They 
come when outward trials have shaken the soul to its very 
centre; then comes from him — "Grace to help in time of 
need." Without it, the heat of persecution, or the cold of 
human desertion, would make life a failure for us. 

Those whose wells of sympathy, of compassion, of charity, 
are the most unfailing, have known what it is to be tried 
and tempted ; they have been taught the delicacy, and the 
tact, and the gentleness which can only be learned by the 
wounding of our own sensibilities. There is a haughty 
feeling in uprightness which has never been on the verge 
of fall, that requires humbling. There is an inability to 
enter into difficulties of thought, that marks the mind, to 
which all things have been presented superficially, and 
which has never experienced the horrors of feeling the ice 
of doubt crashing beneath the feet. Therefore, if you 
would partake of the priestly gift of sympathy, if you 
would pour something beyond commonplace consolation 
into a tempted heart, if you would pass through the inter- 
course of daily life with the delicate tact which never in- 
flicts pain, you must be content to pay the price of the 
costly education. Like him, you must suffer — being 
tempted — like him, your sympathy must extend to the 
frailties of human nature, not to its hardened guilt. He 
is touched with the feeling of our infirmities — not with or 
by our wickedness. There is nothing in his bosom w T hich 
can harmonize with malice. He cannot feel for envy ; he 
has no fellow-feeling for cruelty, oppression, persecution, 



SNEERS AND RIDICULE. 457 

hypocrisy, bitter censorious judgments. Remember, he 
could look round about him with anger. A sympathy for 
that which is pure, implies a repulsion of that which is 
impure. Hatred of evil, and indignation against it, is in 
proportion to the strength of love for good. To love good 
intensely, is to hate evil intensely. It was in strict accord- 
ance with the laws of sympathy, that he blighted Phari- 
saism in such ungentle words as these : " Ye serpents, ye 
generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of 
evil ?" He did not sneer at the Pharisees — he did not 
ridicule them. He denounced them for what they were. 

Sneers and ridicule have been called the weapons of 
small souls and silly minds, but it is well known that 
people who use ridicule as a weapon of assault, are often 
able to command powerful results for the time being, and 
to thwart the efforts of larger souls and nobler minds, which 
reminds one of what Puskin says, writing of base criticism : 
"In all things, whatsoever, there is not, to my mind, a 
more woful or wonderful matter of thought than the power 
of a fool. In the world's affairs there is no design so great 
or good, but it will take twenty wise men to move it for- 
ward a few inches, and a single fool can stop it ; there is 
no evil so great or terrible but that, after a multitude of 
counsellors have taken means to avert it, a single fool will 
bring it down." Therefore, those who move in works of 
philanthropy must expect no sudden reforms, must not be 
frightened by sneers, nor discouraged by ridicule, for the 
race of fools is not dead yet. Philanthropists sow the seed, 
and leave the harvest for another generation to reap. Pools 
can trample down the sprouting blades, and then the seeds 
must take their chance for another spring-time. Happily, 
nothing can destroy their vitality. The truths of inspira- 
tion — and all truth is inspired — are mighty, and will pre- 
vail. The weak thing, weaker than a child, becomes a 



458 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

strong thing one day if it be a true thing, Carlyle tells us , 
but even were we sure that failure would be the result of 
all effort, there is that in the exercise and culture of our 
powers that brings compensation with it. They who would 
know the true enjoyment of life must learn that no pleas- 
ure can satisfy the mind as work does when the head and 
the heart are interested in it. 

" All writing comes by the grace of God, and all doing 
and having/' says Emerson. In these days, when it is 
said that the question asked of one another in the highest 
English society, is not 'How are you?' but 'How is your 
novel coming on ?' one fancies that there must be a great 
many pages written that are not of the grace of God. The 
writer must have, with his spark of genius, the heart of 
love, if he would touch the heart of his readers ; that love 
which is the fire of life, and before which even genius's 
spark grows pale. 

"Thou must be true thyself, 

If thou the truth wouldst teach ; 

Thy soul must overflow, if thou 
Another soul wouldst reach ; 

It needs the overflowing heart 
To give the pen full speech." 

By the liberty of the press, that channel through which 
the light of truth should be diffused among the people, 
good writers may inspire other minds with courage, and 
by a free communication of sentiment, cause the progress 
of ideas and that improvement in social life which so many 
desire, but know not how to attain. 

An author must write in the language of truth ; in so- 
ciety a man is in the constant habit of feeling it only, for 
he must impose a necessary silence upon his lips. There- 
fore, what is written has more of influence and power than 



FEAR OF CRITICS. 459 

what is said. And yet how many, possessing the gift of 
the pen, hesitate to use it lest they should be stigmatized 
in some one way or another. The proverb, "Common- 
sense is better than fine and exalted sense," is disputed by 
Helvetius, when he says, " A man of common-sense is a man 
in whose character indolence predominates. He is not en- 
dowed with that activity of soul, which, in high stations, 
leads great minds to discover new springs by which they 
may set the world in motion, or to sow those seeds from 
the growth of which they are enabled to produce future 
events." The ordinary occupations of life destroy the en- 
thusiasm of genius. The souls of the philosophic observer 
and profound writer sicken under the general pressure, and 
become almost extinct. For what stimulus is there to ex- 
ertion, what inducement to write, when the author is pre- 
viously convinced that every one will endeavor to turn it 
into ridicule the moment; they learn from whose pen it was 
produced ? asks Zimmerman. " Would that mine enemy 
would write a book," said Job, showing that there were 
dishonest reviewers in those days as now, for Job himself 
probably contemplated being a critic in this case. If you 
rise to some height, says Montesquieu, in defence of his 
immortal work, "The Spirit of the Laws" (Query — Was 
it " want of proper self-respect and of dignity" to defend 
his work ?), "If you rise to some height, the critics take 
out their rule and compass, lifting up their heads, desire 
you to come down, that they may measure you ; and in 
running your course, they advise you to take notice of all 
the impediments which the ants have raised in your way." 
Although it may be true, as has been asserted, that all 
great and excellent writers write for immortality, looking 
with enthusiasm towards the suffrages of posterity, it is 
just as true that many writers seek no such recompense. 
Holding aloft their rush-light of truth, they are satisfied 



460 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

if its feeble rays escape the " Jobs " of the present day — 
i. e. their personal foes — lying in wait to put out the lights, 
and are more than content if a few faithful hearts refrain 
from reproaching them because the glimmer is not that of 
a torch. 

Praises, says Plutarch, bestowed upon great and exalted 
minds only rouse and spur on their emulation. Glory, 
like a rapid torrent, hurries them irresistibly on to every- 
thing that is great and noble. Their present actions are 
only a pledge of what may be expected from them, and 
they would blush not to live faithful to their glory, and to 
render it still more illustrious by the noblest deeds. So 
encouraging words of appreciation may stimulate lesser 
minds into efforts which otherwise would never have had 
birth. " The love of praise influences all mankind,'' says 
Cicero, " and the greatest minds are most susceptible of it." 

The human character, it is true, frequently exhibits a 
singular mixture of virtue and vice, of strength and weak- 
ness; and why should we conceal it? Our foibles follow 
all that is terrestrial in our nature to the tomb, and lie 
buried with the body by which they were produced. The 
nobler part, if we have performed any work worthy of ex- 
istence, survives ; and our writings are the best wealth we 
leave behind us when we die. The writer who knows and 
dares to paint the characters of men, continues Zimmer- 
man, must, without doubt, wear a triple shield upon his 
breast; but, on the other hand, there is no book worth 
reading without this style of painting. There are certain 
truths in every good work against which the indignation 
of those who are interested will naturally arise, venting 
itself in clamor against the author who has hazarded 
opinions upon the philosophy of life for the benefit of 
mankind. 

Those authors who speculate on mankind and describe 



FHIENDS AND ENEMIES. 461 

human manners, who study the characters of every descrip- 
tion of people, with their manner of acting and modes of 
thinking, need boldness and confidence to describe things 
by their true names, and to disclose, by their writings, all 
those truths which every free and liberal mind ought to be 
permitted to disclose for the instruction of the people — thus 
spreading the philosophy of human life abroad until the 
time comes when every man will dare to think for himself, 
and disdain to be guided by public opinion. 

Under a republican form of government, says Zimmer-^ 
man, the first maxim parents inculcate into the minds of 
their children is, " not to make themselves enemies." To 
this sage counsel he replied : " My dear mother, do you 
not know that he who has no enemies is a poor man? 
Those who have bitter enemies are also those who have 
strong friends." Schiller puts in the mouth of Marie 
Stuart these words : 

" Ich bin viel gehasset worden, doeh auch viel geliebt" (I 
have been much hated, yet also much loved.) 

Poor queen, it was only a simple truth she spoke. Let 
a woman, says Octavia Hensel, I care not who or ivhat she 
is, be better-looking, more talented, better educated, than 
other women with whom she is brought in contact, and the 
demon of low, cruel jealousy strives to blight her life, or 
at least, to embitter it. Religion has no restraining power 
here ; professing Christian women, yes, and men, too, de- 
scend to fraud, deceit, and even lying, concerning one more 
talented, more cultured than themselves. These are they 
who hate much. But the balance is even, especially if a 
woman who has faith enough to remember the unknown 
sympathies. There are noble women and men, who, pro- 
fessing less Christianity, make a better practical exem- 
plification of it, who bravely and truthfully stand by 
the cruelly condemned one, and whisper to the sad heart 



462 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the holiest attributes of God, love and charity. Ouida has 
hit the mark in these simple words: " Dulness and medi- 
ocrity may live unmolested and unattacked, but people 
never tire of finding spots on a sun whose brilliancy blinds 
them." 

Books that treat of men, and manners, and customs of 
the times, live longer than many nobler works dealing with 
less popular subjects. The reader of one hundred years 
hence may find even more interest in them (as revealing 
the characteristics of the society of their times), than do the 
present generation. It is marvellous to see how the expe- 
riences of humanity, like the events of history, repeat them- 
selves. An author of the last century, after commenting 
upon the importance of instruction through books, and the 
duties of writers, says : " An author is viewed by his fellow- 
citizens and by contemporary writers with different eyes. 
By the latter his defects, as well as his good qualities, are 
easily discernible in his writings, which, if they express 
one sentiment with sincerity, often become the strongest 
evidence against him. This idea, however, is consolatory 
to the feelings of his dear countrymen, to whose ears the 
praises which he has received may reach, and who are 
obliged to admit the mortifying idea that there are people 
in the world who hold his works in some esteem. The 
fellow-citizen, on the contrary, seeks only to divine the in- 
tention of the author; construes every expression contrary 
to its import; perceives a vein of satire where, in fact, no 
satire exists, where it would be impossible that there should 
be any, and disfigures even those respectable truths which 
the author discloses in the sincerity of his heart, and for 
which every just and honest mind will silently thank him." 

Such a state of things must have a tendency to restrain 
the use of the pen in its efforts to correct evils and institute 
reforms , which fact is to be deplored because it is such a 



AUTHORS. 463 

powerful engine to wield in the service of humanity. Harsh- 
ness is, without doubt, excluded from society; whilst, on 
the other hand, the naked truths which well-written works 
disclose frequently strike the mind and produce an effect. 
" I am myself extremely chaste/' said a poet, " but I ac- 
knowledge that my works are not." A writer, therefore, may 
be civil and polite in his personal intercourse with mankind, 
and still properly severe in his works. He who in worldly 
circles is kind in his behavior and complacent in his man- 
ners, may surely be permitted to hazard in his writings 
a bold, or even a harsh expression, and to insert here and 
there a melancholy truth, when so many others are occu- 
pied in circulating sprightly falsehoods with their tongues 
in a society where energy of thought is banished from con- 
versation. Or it may be that many are withheld from 
using their pens for advancing the good of their kind by 
thoughts of the little one can accomplish single-handed, 
working for any good, or warring with any evil. Where 
would the world be now had all men reasoned in this way? 
The great art of doing much is doing a little at a time. 
All the performances of human art at which we look with 
praise or wonder, says the celebrated Dr. Johnson, are in- 
stances of the resistless force of perseverance; it is by this 
that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant coun- 
tries are united by canals. If a man was to compare the 
single stroke of the pickaxe, or of an impression of the spade, 
with the general design and last result, he would be over- 
whelmed by the sense of their disproportion. Yet those 
petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount 
the greatest difficulties ; and mountains are levelled, and 
oceans bounded by the slender force of human beings. It 
is, therefore, of the utmost importance that men should add 
to their reason and their spirit the power of persisting in 
their purposes ; acquire the art of sa-ppiug what they cannot 



464 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

batter, and the habit of vanquishing obstinate resistance by 
obstinate attacks. 

Others, again, may be withheld from using the powers in- 
trusted to them for the benefit of their fellow-creatures by 
the fear of ridicule, or of being pointed out as would-be 
leaders, or reformers. Ah, how much might be gained if, 
instead of cruel sneers and wilful perversion of motives, 
men and women, old and young, would try to do a little 
toward making people happy, toward making them kind 
to one another, acting on the principle that, no matter 
how rich or how poor, everybody needs all the kindness 
they can get from others in this world. " To tell you the 
truth/' said the Archbishop of Cashell, in a letter to Dean 
Swift, "I have for these four or five years past met with so 
much treachery, baseness, and ingratitude among mankind, 
that I can hardly think it incumbent upon any man to en- 
deavor to do good to so perverse a generation." 

Again, a living author writes : " The pain as of a knife 
forever thrust into the loins, of a cord forever knotted hard 
about the temples, is the daily and nightly penalty of those 
mad enough to believe that they have the force in them to 
change the sluggard, and the swinish appetites, and the 
hungry cruelties of their kind, into a life of high endeavor 
and divine desire." 

The best answer that could be made to this wail of dis- 
couraged effort and baffled purpose comes from the same 
pen writing from its Horeb : " To the reed that has once 
trembled under the melody born of the breath divine, the 
voices of mortal mouths as they scream in rage, or exult 
in clamor, or contend in battle, must ever seem the idlest 
and emptiest of all the sounds under heaven." 

Only those who dwell upon the mountain of inspira- 
tion are able to shut out these sounds ; but neither poets, 
prophets, nor preachers can dwell there always, and when 



AUTHORS. 465 

they come down from their heights they find their paths 
sown with discouragements, bristling as thickly as quills 
on the back of a porcupine. 

Zimmerman says that the author who writes for the good 
of his fellow-citizens is a fool who sows his seed upon a 
rock, or as those who scribble their names on walks and on 
panes of glass. His townspeople may pardon something 
that is good, but nothing that is severe, great, or free. To 
the prejudiced rabble, therefore, he must learn to be dis- 
creetly silent; for, openly to avow sentiments that would 
do honor to his character, is only to exasperate against 
himself all those amongst whom he lives, who possess small 
souls and mean natures. The evil that we do, says Roche- 
foucoult, does not draw upon us so many persecutions and 
so much hatred as our good qualities. 

But authors who are more or less students of human na- 
ture, know that all impartial and rational minds adopt 
principles in judging the merit of a good work which are 
the same throughout the world. That they inquire : " Does 
the work relate to the interests of mankind ? Is its object 
useful, and its end moral?" If the work inspires noble 
sentiments and generous resolutions, their judgment is fixed 
— the work is good, and the author is a master of the sci- 
ence ; a philosopher, a benefactor of mankind. 

Writers, benefactors, and philosophers, however, are not 
the characters most beloved by the world. They have the 
pleasure of reflecting that the public hatred is never uni- 
versally excited against an ordinary man. They are not 
surprised if the vulgar condemn whatever they write and 
all they say, or if some of their readers call black white, 
and white black. This kind of stupidity is a dangerous 
kind when it goes with credit and authority, reminding one 
of the fox in the Indian fable. • 

" Reynard, where are you going in so great a hurry ? 

30 



466 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Have you done any mischief for which you are fearful of 
being punished?" "No, sir," replied the fox, "my con- 
science is clear, and does not reproach me with anything ; 
but I have just overheard the hunters wish that they had 
a camel to hunt this morning." " Well, but how does that 
concern you? You are not a camel." " O ! sir," replied 
the fox, " sagacious heads always have enemies. If any one 
should point me out to the huntsmen, and say, i There runs 
a camel T those gentlemen would immediately seize me and 
load me with chains, without once inquiring whether I 
really was a camel." 

Reynard was right, but it is lamentable that men should 
be wicked in proportion as they are stupid, or that they 
should be wicked only because they are envious. He who 
finds himself the object of such wrath can revenge himself 
by letting it be seen that no man living is an object of envy 
or scandal to him, and console himself by remembering 
that envy is the shadow of glory, as glory is the shadow of 
virtue. 

There are no worse tyrants than the prejudices of man- 
kind, and the servitude of liberal minds becomes more 
weighty in proportion to the public ignorance. Those 
minds that have learned wisdom from experience should 
neither be weighed down, shaken, nor surprised by outside 
influences. They have resources which repay for all 
calumnies, for all the ingratitude with which their labors 
and anxieties have been rewarded ; they can use society to 
minister to their ends without being hurt by it. They will 
not be influenced in their judgments of others by those who 
call white black, but will judge for themselves. Ah, the 
wrong that is daily done to our fellow-beings by allowing 
ourselves to be influenced in our judgments of people by 
the prejudiced views of others. How often are we made 
to feel that we have been unjust in our judgments ; and if 



LEADERS. 467 

so with those whom we know, how much more so must it 
be with those whom we do not know? Those of whom 
we have allowed ourselves to form an opinion under some 
wrong impression ; the tone of the voice, a word said in 
jest, or a trifle like the cut of the hair or the tie of a neck- 
cloth. " I do not like Mr. Fairfax," said a lady. " Why 
not?" "He wears coral studs, embroidered shirt bosoms, 
and lace cravats at parties ; and, in his ordinary toilet, lets 
his cravat fall in two long ends. He is my horror." . And 
yet Mr. Fairfax deserved well of his country for heroic deeds 
on battlefields. It may be, even, that at the end of years of 
intimacy, your friend, your relative possibly, reveals some- 
thing which you had not known before, and which alters 
all your views about her ; showing you that she has been 
standing on quite another plane of action than the one you 
fancied her upon, acting from quite different motives from 
those you attributed to her. 

" I do not wish to be called a brilliant woman," wrote a 
mother to a friend who had so called her. " I wish to have 
my children and all my own think of me in my life, and 
when I am gone, as of one who tried to do all the good 
that she could while here." 

Such must be the aspiration of every true woman's 
heart; for so far as a woman is true to the nature that God 
has given her, her aspiration is not so much that the world 
should ring with her fame, says Brooke, or society quote 
her as a leader, but that she should bless, and be blessed 
in blessing. Where she has power of position, she uses it 
for noble, and not ignoble ends — for womanly services, and 
not for the degradation of herself and others. She is trou- 
bled with no aspirations for leadership. For her there is 
only one Leader in whom she can trust. 

When will the world learn that no man, no woman, can 
make himself or herself a leader? When a general is 



468 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

needed, destiny raises him. to fill the place assigned to him. 
He has not chosen himself, and very often he is not the one 
whom the people would have chosen. Neither art, nor 
literature, nor science is a craft. Those to whom the en- 
dowment comes in their cradles, all those in whom the 
immortal spark of genius (that lives in every soul) is tended 
into a flame, feel that they have a mission to fulfil — a sa- 
cred mission. Sacred it must be, for there can be no mis- 
sion from men to men. It comes from the divinity within — 
from God himself. It is he who worketh in them both 
to will and to do of his own good pleasure. As Hamerton 
says, it would be as well, if, instead of setting down origin- 
ality as folly, we were to give heaven credit for understand- 
ing the best interests of humanity, when it accompanied 
every good gift with the condition that the possessor should 
be uneasy until he had set it forth. All artists, poets, in- 
ventors, thinkers, are compelled to set forth their gifts. 
This is the condition of genuineness in art work. Men 
and women engrossed in great works are not generally the 
ones who seek leadership in it, but seek rather to establish 
others than to take the lead themselves. 

Swift said, Hide your intellect, do what you are expected 
to do, say what you are expected to say, and you will be 
at peace. The secret of popularity is to be commonplace 
on principle. But if, as has been asserted, the thinker's 
gift gives him no rest until he has used it for the good 
of mankind, Swift's advice cannot be followed by men of 
talent. 

Spinoza declared that in order to lead a tranquil life he 
had been compelled to renounce all kinds of teaching. 
Truly the teacher and preacher have a hard penalty to pay 
for devoting their lives to the service of mankind, if the 
loss of tranquillity is to be one of the forfeits. This is 
why we often see hearts which are attuned to the melody 



LOVE OF APPROBATION. 469 

of all goodness jarred by rude hands, until they utter notes 
as discordant as those breathed by the Archbishop. They 
have paid the forfeit of some noble endeavor, some mis- 
placed trust, in loss of tranquillity of mind for the time 
being. Where there are perturbations, and fears, and 
desires not satisfied, and aversions of things which you 
cannot avoid, and envies and jealousies, how is there a 
road to happiness there? asks Epictetus. Where there 
are corrupt principles, there these things must of neces- 
sity be. 

Kingsley, after stating that every motive which springs 
from self is by its very essence un heroic, adds, but the love 
of approbation, the desire for the respect and love of our 
fellow- men, must not be excluded from the list of heroic 
motives. Whereby we see that the craving of men for 
sympathy in sorrow from those whom they love, for ap- 
preciation of motives of action when these motives have 
been maligned and traduced by enemies, for a just and 
charitable estimate of aims in life, are counted not as weak- 
nesses, but as virtues. 

When friends in whom men have trusted fail them in 
sympathy, appreciation, and charity, what more natural 
than that the human should triumph over the divine, as 
in our Lord's experience when deserted by his apostles. 
For as a clergyman of the Church of England so eloquently 
tells us, that which we love most in men and women, in 
our leaders, in wife and husband, daughter and son, in sis- 
ter and brother, friend or lover, is faithfulness. It is, as 
it is in God, the ground of all other qualities. If, even in 
thought, it is untrue, if it allow base motives to be imputed 
to those we love for conduct which we do not understand, 
if it listen to blame imputed without denial, if it maintains 
silence when speech could aid, then it is faithlessness worse 
than speech. For we may pardon the faithless looseness 



4:70 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

of the tongue in excitement, but not the failure of the 
heart. 

" Let the mad world go its own way. It will go its 
own way !" cry the worldly wise to those whose feet have 
been led into paths which they have not chosen — paths 
which friends condemn, and foes assail. Heed not the 
cry ! God has given to every man, to every woman, a 
work to do (be it ever so humble) for others, as well as for 
themselves and their own, and the time comes at last when 
they find their path, and when their work is made clear 
for them. 

" Let the mad world go on its own way," is also the cry 
sent after the philanthropist, who, working for the ameli- 
oration of the condition of his fellow-men meets with oblo- 
quy and reproach. All who labor to advance the welfare 
of their kind, are working in God's fields, whether it be 
work for the race or for individuals, whether it be collect- 
ively in some gigantic cause, or singly and humbly, by 
those who, valuing the beauty of beautiful behavior, kind 
acts and beneficent deeds, strive to improve themselves 
and others, and to bring blessings wherever they go. 
If, then, the mad world will go its own way, it is our 
duty to see to it that it does not carry us away from 
the work given to every human being in entail — that of 
perfecting his own character and living for the good of 
others. 

No one can walk over a bed of thornless roses with such 
a goal in view ; the brambles upon either side of the straight 
and narrow path of duty bear spikes like that of the desert- 
thorn of Sahara — long enough to pierce to the heart's 
core of those who stoop to encounter them. Sharpest among 
such thorns are those thrust in by hands we have trusted 
in to support our own — faithless hands, which fail us when 
we need them most. 



LEADERS. 471 

" You have brought it all upon yourself/' said a pastor 
to one of his parishioners who had gone to him in a sorrow 
that to her was worse than death, feeling that he might be 
able to give her some words of comfort, which would help 
her to take up the burden of life again. 

" I know that I have," she answered. " I knew it before 
you told me. But I cannot see why my efforts to be of 
use to others should be permitted to bring so much evil 
upon me, although I must believe that some great good 
will come out of it, because you have always said that all 
things work together for good to those who love goodness, 
and who work for good ends." 

As the woman walked away from the house, where she 
had gone to a being as feeble as herself for solace, she was 
joined by a friend, to whom she narrated her experience. 
" How could he give me a stone when I asked for bread?" 
she said. The answer came in a line from one of Mrs. 
Browning's poems, 

" Our cedars must fall round us, ere we see the light behind." 

A branch from a mighty cedar had fallen, but not in vain. 
The light shone in where it had never shone before, and 
taught her self-reliance, while eventually out of the dark 
cloud of malice which surrounded her, arose her shining 
sun of happiness. 

"God has ordained that mankind should be elevated by 
misfortune, and that happiness should grow out of misery 
and pain," says Reade in his " Martyrdom of Man." He 
it is who also says: "To do that which deserves to be writ- 
ten, to write that which deserves to be read, to tend the 
sick, to comfort the sorrowful, to animate the weary, to 
keep the temple of the body pure, to cherish the divinity 
within us, to be faithful to the intellect, to educate those 
powers which have been intrusted to our charge, and to 



472 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

employ them in the service of humanity, that is all we can 
do." 

In doing this we need but one Leader, and he will 
direct our steps in paths which lead to peace. 

" Think truly, and thy thought 
Shall the world's famine feed ; 
Speak truly, and thy word 
Shall be a fruitful seed ; 
Live truly, and thy life shall be 
A great and noble creed." 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 473 



CHAPTER XVI. 



OTIK BEST SOCIETY — ITS STRENGTH AND ITS WEAKNESSES. 

" It was a favorite observation of Pope Julius II, that learning 
elevated the lowest orders of society, stamped the highest value on 
nobility, and to princes was the most splendid gem in the diadem of 
sovereignty." — Life of M. Angelo. 

u The keynote to the best society is education, whereby all the ave- 
nues to advancement are open to all men. Books are our household 
gods. They make invisible thoughts visible. The great of the earth 
bow down to the genius of literature." — Emily Faithful. 

"Our ancienne noblesse are grandchildren of signers of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, or of officers of high rank who fought in the 
Revolution or in our second war with England, or fell at Bladens- 
burg in single combat." — Miss Grundy, in the Graphic. 

11 J'ai une observation, qui d'ailleurs a ete mille fois faite. L' Ameri- 
cain a la soif de l'egalite et la manie des titres. Ceux qui pcuvent 
s'appeler senateur, gouverneur, colonel, general — ne fut-ce que de la 
milice — et leur nombre est legion, sontconstammentnommes par leur 

titre et jamais par leur nom Par analogic, je citerai encore 

le naive fierte des anciennes families qui descendent des premiers em- 
igrants hollandais, des Puritains anglais, des Huguenots de France. 
Je n'ai jamais fait la connaissance d'une personne de cette categorie, 
homme ou femme, qui, immediatcment apres la presentation, ne m'ait 
dit: ' Je suis d'une tres-ancienne famille ; mes ancetres sont arrives 
ici, il y a plus de deux cents ans. Nous avons en Angleterre des 
cousins qui siegent a la chambre des Lords,' etc." — M. le Baron de 
Hubner. 

u I submit to your judgment, Romans, on which side the advan- 
tage lies, when comparison is made hetween patrician haughtiness 



474 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

and plebeian experience. . . Are not all men of the same species? 
What can make a difference between one man and another, but the 
endowment of the mind? For my part, I shall always look upon 

the bravest man as the noblest man 

" The glory of ancestors casts a light, indeed, upon their posterity ; 
but it only serves to show what the descendants are. It alike exhibits 
to public view their degeneracy and their worth." — Caius Marius. 

"My tastes are exclusive ; my principles are against ex- 
clusiveness," said a lady in society, not long since, re- 
minding one of the Rev. Frederick Robertson's declaration 
that his sympathies were with the aristocrat, and his 
theories with the mob. 

There are many in our best society that resemble the 
democrat who, in upholding his views, said : "One man is 
born as good as another, and a great deal better than 
some/' 

This assertion has a foundation in one of the great 
truths which science is gradually making clear to all 
minds. The child born of criminals develops procliv- 
ities which the child of virtuous parents is free from. The 
man who has used the one talent aright, neither sacrificing 
the cultivation of the physique to mental culture, nor ig- 
noring the latter in pursuit of the former, transmits the 
fourfold multiplied talent to his offspring. When this has 
gone on for generations, the result is just what M. Hubner 
tells us in his work, " Autour du Monde/' he found among 
the American descendants of those Holland emigrants, 
English Puritans, and French Huguenots, that came to 
our shores more than two hundred years ago, namely, 
" men and women distinguished from the i pretentieux et 
vulgares' by their highly finished education and man- 
ners." Herein lies the vitality of the power wielded by 
old families in America. 

When the culture dies out, the power expires with it. 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 475 

Men, belonging to such families, who neglect the cultivation 
of their minds, as some have done in this generation, on 
the ground that their names would take them into any 
society in America, must learn sooner or later that their 
names are really of little service to them in our best so- 
ciety, without that education which was the distinguishing 
mark of their ancestors. 

According to Worcester's definition of education, it 
comprises that series of instruction as to manners and 
habits, as well as to the enlightenment of the understanding, 
which our ancestors laid so much stress upon, but which 
many of their descendants in this generation are seeking to 
ignore. Neither names nor titles will keep men or women 
afloat in our best circles unless they possess the culture of 
mind and refinement of manner which their names or titles 
are supposed to represent. 

M. Hubner, declares the American fondness for titles to 
be so great that " cclui qui le doiuie et celwi qui le recoit 
se sentent egalement honores." He continues, " As to the 
titles of nobility, the forbidden fruit of republican Amer- 
ica, ils sont evidemment prononces avec vohqjte." Seeking to 
find some explanation of such strange anomalies in a re- 
public as pride of race and love of titles, he attributes the 
weakness less to vanity than to those qualities of human 
nature which, like the qualities of inanimate nature, re- 
quire variety and repudiate equality. 

In individual cases, vanity, without doubt, lies at the 
root of much of the snobbish deference which we see paid 
to men and women whose only recommendation is the 
name, or the title, which they bear, or the money they pos- 
sess ; but when we regard these same individuals with a 
view toward discovering how far they represent the feel- 
ing of the various communities in which they dwell, we 
are sure to find them in no way supported by the pre- 



476 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

vailing sentiments of the best society. So that after all 
it was hardly fair in M. Hubner to make such a sweeping 
assertion. Equally unjust would it be to give the following 
fact in proof of its truth, which is an isolated case that 
may have no parallel. 

At a ball given a few years since in one of the famous 
palaces of Italy, one room, as is the custom at courts, was 
set apart for the dignitaries. There were dowagers there, 
wonderful to behold, blazing as they were with diamonds 
from their coronets down to their girdles ; a softened light 
seemed to pervade the apartment, and no sounds of revelry 
broke upon the subdued murmurs of this hallowed place, 
for the bands of music were far distant. An American 
girl, whose fondness for the decorations of rank had led 
her into wearing the coronet of a marchioness (of false 
pearls), passed through the crowd, and seated herself with 
the elect, entirely unconscious of the sacred character of the 
place. She was young and beautiful, pale, golden hair, 
and eyes as blue as the turquoise in her necklace. Her 
superb physique caused her to look like an Englishwoman 
more than an American, and an English marchioness she 
was supposed to be, without doubt, from the benignant 
glances bestowed upon her. Could she have been the 
same young lady who, more recently, at a court ball in 
Vienna, expressed her intense happiness, at finding herself 
surrounded by such dignitaries in these words : " On re- 
spire id un atmosphere d'archiducs et de princes ! " 

It is well that we have not many such representatives 
of American women, or we should soon find authors using 
more caustic pens than does M. Hubner, in discussing our 
fondness for titles. 

A writer in the " Spectator " states that the vitality of titles 
depends upon a half- unconscious sense that they add to 
instead of diminishing the pleasure of social intercourse; 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 477 

that they define in a second what else would require a 
troublesome definition. 

This statement is best illustrated by some Mrs. Leadgilt's 
course when asked if she will be introduced to Lady Fitz- 
phool. Her answer is a prompt "certainly," without any 
questions as to her ladyship's paternity, or as to whether 
she is connected with the Fitzclarences, or as to who she 
was before she came into the grand Fitzphool family. 
But let plain Mr. Fitzwater ask for an introduction to 
Mrs. Leadgilt, and before she gives her consent she in- 
quires " What family of Fitzwaters does he belong to ? 
Really, I know so many people that I do not want to know 
any more." 

But, fortunately for our best society, it is not all made 
up of the family Leadgilt and their relations. There are 
many ladies belonging to our oldest aristocracy — i. e., the 
descendants of cultured ancestors — who would content 
themselves with inquiring whether Mr. Fitzwater was an 
agreeable wellbred man ; and some there are among these 
many, who, if he were a boor, would not receive him into 
their houses, even though he were a nephew of the Duke 
of Sherrysea. So that the vitality and importance of titles, 
even here in a republic, only becomes extinct in men who, 
holding them, do not possess the culture and good-breeding 
that they are supposed to represent. 

The ideas sometimes held in America, as to what the 
validity of a title depends upon, are well illustrated by the 
following fact, which actually occurred at Newport: 

A young, handsome Portuguese, styling himself Count 

M , appeared at this watering-place one summer. The 

Portuguese Minister declared that he was no count, and 
there was great commotion for a time between the attack- 
ing and the defending parties. In the end it was proved 
that his father had been made a count for his lifetime 



478 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

only, and that the title did not descend to his son. How- 
ever, the defenders maintained that he held the right to 
the title, which was as absurd as if the son of some one of 
our army generals should maintain that he inherited the 
title by his father's death. The lady who had introduced 
the self-styled count asked an editor to set the young Por- 
tuguese right before the public, which was done in the 
following racy and original manner — an article appearing 
which stated that " it was entirely immaterial whether the 
Portuguese was recognized as a count by the kings and 
queens of Europe as long as the queens of American society 
had conferred the title, because they found him to possess 
all the qualities required in a count." 

For consistency's sake, the queens and princesses of our 
republican realms should not hereafter recognize counts as 
counts, nor dukes as dukes, unless they sustain the dignity 
of their titles by civil manners and courteous behavior; 
for this it is, with cultured minds, that gives dignity and 
worth to titles. Without such accessories, titles are a dis- 
grace instead of an honor, inasmuch as they bear testimony 
to wasted opportunities, or to qualities of mind and nature 
which boors and some animals share in common, to such 
an extent as to support the African tradition as to the 
descent of human beings from ancestral apes. 

The English ridicule what they are pleased to call our 
overweening fondness for the titles of general, colonel, 
major, and captain, and say that we frequently bestow them 
on the slightest provocation. Gurowsky tells us this fond- 
ness is an inherited tendency, and, indeed, one cannot but 
be struck with the truth of the statement, when one meets, 
either here or in England, with Englishmen not possessing 
titles, but members of noble families, who, like the Ameri- 
cans of la naive fierte, of whom Hubner speaks, lose no time 
in informing you of their descent, or recounting the titles of 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 479 

their relatives until it would seem that there are no longer 
any gentlemen in England who have no titled connections. 
It is either Tom Bethigh, nephew of the Duke of Spendall, 
or Jack Creepup, related to Lord Level, or Mordaunt Vane, 
descended from the first Earl of Vanity. 

Ridicule will never crush out the fondness for titles that 
is found in every land, as long as a title is supposed to 
represent a superior position, or superior advantages, or 
superiority of one kind or another. 

Continental Europeans belonging to old families are not 
given to parading the fact. They look upon the English 
as being a new people, just as the English in turn look 
down upon us. The fact that it is so, often causes an 
Englishman to sneer at Continental titles. Even Thack- 
eray gave his little thrust when he wrote : " Titles not 
costing much in the Roman territory, he had the clerk of 
his banking-house made a marquis; and his lordship will 
screw bajoccio out of you in exchange as dexterously as a 
commoner would do. It is a comfort to be able to gratify 
such grandees with a farthing or two — it makes the poorest 
man feel that he can do good." All those who have been 
in patrician society in Italy, know that it is not a society 
to sneer at. In "The Boudoir Cabal," Prince Casino, 
wooing Grace Marvel, says, while smarting under some 
slight he has received at the hands of Lord Hornette : " I 
will get some diplomatic post, which will make me more 
than the equal here of these English lords, and then you 
will come to my own country, where people will adore 
you, and they will say that never was a princess of our race 
so fair, though we are a long line, carina. My ancestor got 
his title six centuries since from Charles of Anjou, while 
the ancestors of your puddle-blooded commercial peers 
begged for pence in the highways." Others there are, 
among the forty oldest families of Europe, who hold their 



480 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

lineage, step by step, down the bloodstained fields of the 
past, nearly four centuries further back, and whose aversion 
for the English, as well as the American race, is based upon 
their belief that gold is the god that both nations worship. 

Certainly, were it so, we would merit the contempt that 
is often expressed abroad for Americans and American 
society, by those who, never having been out of their own 
land, form their ideas of ns from such plays as u Uncle 
Sam." Baser than the love of distinction is the love of 
gold, and that man who has no other claim to consideration 
than his money-bags, is looked upon as a poor specimen of 
humanity in every land. 

Experience shows us that the desire for other distinctions 
than money is as strong in republics as it is in kingdoms, 
and the usurpation of them is even more common. Since 
the last revolution in France, men have appropriated the 
title of count, with only the faintest of reference to ques- 
tions of estate and pedigree. The son of a Red Republican 
" citizen," who marries a countess, follows the example 
of the Portuguese and adopts the title of M. le Comte. 
Not long ago an attempt was made by President Mac- 
Mahon to suppress this practice of appropriating titular 
dignities, but it appears to have been as unsuccessful as 
unpopular measures usually are. Statesmen and notabil- 
ities who do not possess them frequently betray their de- 
sire to have them, as well as their jealousy of those whose 
privileges, because of their titles, exceed their own. Count 
Bismarck accepted the most meaningless of all titles — that 
of Prince without principalities — as his reward for his 
priceless services for Germany. M. Thiers advocated, at 
his dinner-table one day, the bestowal of titles and decor- 
ations, saying : " If you had been in power, you would 
understand how happy one is to be able to reward men for 
their services otherwise than with money." 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 481 

The social value of the de is enormous in Europe. 
In Germany and in Italy one meets with fewer spurious 
titles. The story of the miller who bought Brandenburg 
is always fresh in Hans's mind as an evidence that class 
distinctions are not necessarily permanent ones, and, as a 
journalist writes, where one can buy pedigrees with a little 
ready money, where titles are commodities quoted at par 
or premium, according to the demand, and where every 
brigand and bravo claims ducal ancestry, and is particu- 
larly jealous of the family honor, there is really no occasion 
to appropriate them by fraud or force. The knowledge of 
these spurious claims caused our forefathers to look with 
suspicion on all titled foreigners, and to class them with 
tramps, and adventurers, and vagabonds. The title of 
count is frequently given jocularly to some of the idle 
swells in our cities, and not unfrequently abroad, for wher- 
ever, as in France previous to the tempest of 1789, oppres- 
sion has reigned triumphant, and the masses have been 
long ground under the heel of iron class distinctions, titular 
dignities have, in the popular dialect, come to represent 
boundless, inflated, and unreal pretensions. Hence this 
application to adventurers. 

Men of humble origin, who have that grudge against the 
well-born which all of them are said to possess, so invari- 
ably decry all social claims having any foundation in good 
birth, that a due value of its advantages has come to be a 
test of the standing of a man's forefathers with many. 
Those who have all the money that they want, are not 
generally the ones who envy others the possession of it. 
Those who come from " good stock " can bear to hear 
other "good stock" spoken of without berating all "good 
stock." 

Pride of birth, however objectionable in the eyes of 
many, confers at least one advantage on its possessor- 

31 



482 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

They who are reared in it from their cradle, according to 
Bulwer, acquire so unconsciously an air of dignity or dis- 
tinction, that it seems hereditary and inborn. " Only from 
generations of pure descent are evolved the serene grace 
devoid of languor, the quiet self-reliance so different from 
self-assertion, and the carriage imperial without imperious- 
ness." These are nature's gifts and cannot be acquired. 

Lord Nelson said : " It is better to be envied than pitied," 
and of all envy that is said to be the most rankling which 
a low-born man feels towards the well-born. 

In the year 1873, a Philadelphian, a man of culture, if 
not wellbred, walked into the sitting-room of a New Eng- 
land lady in New York, and found her busy over piles of 
books and family papers, time-stained and dropping to 
pieces, making out the necessary statistics for the class his- 
tory of her son, under one of the requirements in the cir- 
cular yearly sent to the students at Harvard College, which 
requirement reads as follows: 

" II. Pedigree on father's side, tracing back the origin 
of your family as far as possible, mentioning ancestors in 
any way distinguished — for example, if engaged in the 
Revolution — and particularly the history of those who 
first came to this country Ancestral line of moth- 
er's family in briefer form. What ancestors or relatives 
have received a liberal education? When? Where ?" 

The Philadelphian, drawing a chair near the table, picked 
up an old copy of armorial bearings with casque and mant- 
ling, such as are often seen among descendants of our 
earliest settlers, with black, worm-eaten frames. " Where 
did you pick up this lot of trash?" he asked. "That spe- 
cial item of this 'lot of trash ' came from the garret of my 
great-great-uncle on my mother's side, who was a member 
of the body which framed the Constitution of Massachusetts 
in 1780," was the answer. "Some travelling tinker or 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 483 

peddler's descendant then/' was the impertinent reply, "as 
all New England families are descended from one or the 
other." 

The lady felt the porcupine quills of inherited proclivi- 
ties bristling aggressively, but restraining herself, replied : 
"Not all New England families, Mr. Sunjon;" and pick- 
ing up a page of the material she was preparing, she added : 
" History gives quite another account of my first paternal 
ancestor in America. Howell, writing of him and his 
twenty-r'ne contemporaneous settlers, says: ' They were 
men of means and sterling worth. They were the Puritans 
of England. They were more than mere colonists — they 
were the exponents of a new civilization, founded on the 
idea that under God men could govern themselves. Their 
flight from England, and self-exile on these shores, was 
the strongest protest they could give against the divine 
right of kings in civil and religious government/ Which 
is in error, Mr. Sunjon, you or history?" 

The Philadelphian evaded a direct answer, but grumbled 
out something about taking no interest in family histories, 
which want of interest is shared by most men (in the plu- 
ral). The author of "Guy Livingstone" says: "I can 
conceive of no curiosity more legitimate than that concern- 
ing a family house or family annals ;" but, as a rule, the 
curiosity does not extend beyond one's own house and one's 
own annals. 

M. Hubner, while asserting that in the United States 
one meets more frequently with pretentious and vulgar 
people than with " des gens comme ilfaut" admits that our 
Eastern cities have a society " jilus exclusive que ne le sont 
les coteries les plus inaccessibles des cours et des capitales 
oVEurope." 

But it is only within the last few years that Europeans 
have been willing to admit that there are any American fami- 



484 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

lies whose claims for exclusiveness are well substantiated. 
"There cannot be any aristocracy in a democracy/' they 
say : they have regarded us all as in the same category — 
all " born free and equal." The mistake made by them 
had its foundation in our Declaration of Independence, the 
utterance of the wisest statesmen of that time which tried 
men's souls, but science has made the seeming wisdom of 
one hundred years ago foolishness in more than one dog- 
matically given opinion, and we are now willing to ac- 
knowledge not only the superiority of blooded animals on 
the race-course, but the advantages which the human being 
derives from transmitted qualities of the mind and heart. 
Had the framers of our Declaration of Independence taken 
into consideration, as they ought to have done, this truth, 
and with it another, viz., that even were all men born free 
and equal, so long as there are differing temperaments and 
capacities, so long will one man outstrip another in the race 
of life, they might have built our republic on a more solid 
basis than the one they have reared for it. Men are not 
all born equal, and if they were they would not remain so. 

There is one kind of exclusiveness that is creditable, 
another kind that is reprehensible. In illustration of the 
latter kind, an incident may be given, which will show 
what mistakes exclusive people are liable to make in their 
judgments of others. 

A party of Americans, in Rome, were arranging for an 
excursion, when an English lady, who had made their ac- 
quaintance at Villa Nardi, Sorrento, called upon them, and 
hearing their plans, intimated her wish to join them. The 
chaperon, a benevolent, middle-aged woman, immediately 
extended the necessary invitation, which was at once ac- 
cepted ; but the exclusive ladies of the party felt disposed 
to resent the liberty that had been taken, and consequently 
treated the stranger rather coldly. Shortly after the ex- 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 485 

cursion, the benevolent lady invited the English woman to 
drive with her, hoping to atone for the coldness of the other 
ladies. Again the invitation was accepted, and the two, 
seated in a roomy landau, with coachman and footman on 
the box, proceeded to the Corso, to take a turn there before 
going up the Pincian hill. Among the landaus that dashed 
past them was one of unusual elegance in all its appoint- 
ments, the footmen in full livery standing behind. In the 
carriage was seated a woman of middle age, of strikingly 
distinguished appearance, holding a little girl on her lap, 
and beside her a much younger woman, as beautiful as a 
woman with brunette complexion, bright color, glorious 
eyes and hair, and perfect features can be. 

As the carriages flew past, unmistakable marks of the 
most intimate recognition passed between its occupants and 
the English lady. Again on the Pincian, without repeat- 
ing the bow, they smiled, or made some signal with their 
hands each time the carriages passed. At last the curiosity 
of the benevolent lady was stimulated so far, that she could 
no longer resist the inquiry, " Who are your friends ?" 

" My sister and her daughter/' was the reply. 

Madam, not to be thwarted, continued : " The elder lady 
is very fine-looking, and the younger one is so like the 

Princess T , whom I met at one of f s receptions 

the other day, that I thought at first it was she." 

"You are right, it is she," was the quiet answer. The 

Princess T is the niece of Lord D , Earl of , 

and is called the most beautiful woman in Rome. The 
prince is one of the wealthiest and most influential of the 
Italian nobles. The American lady enjoyed a quiet laugh 
over the exclusiveness of the younger members of her 
party. . 

That exclusiveness which grows out of varying degrees 
of culture, and of varying grades of society marked by 



488 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

different customs and habits, by observance or non-obser- 
vance of certain forms, is a creditable exclusiveness. It 
has existed and must continue to exist in all civilized lands, 
with as much force in a republic as in a kingdom. Our 
nobility then, is an order which takes precedence over all 
other orders of nobility. It is the nobility of culture, and 
it possesses this advantage, that every aspirant for a place 
in its ranks may secure his position there, if he fits him- 
self to hold it. 

Wherever that true culture exists which lies not merely 
in the enlightenment of the intellect but equally as much 
in the moral strength, and in their united outward mani- 
festation of manners, there will be found our best society. 
Self-control and unselfishness are indispensable qualities 
for this society. The uncultured man gives free course to 
his joy and his sorrow, his good-will and his anger; the 
cultivated makes it an honor to be able to govern these 
outbursts of feeling, to bear trial with submission, and to 
show moral courage when requisite. In no place is there 
so wide a field for the exercise of this quality as in society. 
" It is the glory of a man to pass by a transgression/' says 
Scripture, yet how often is moral courage needed to put 
but this one injunction into practice. It is so easy to resent, 
it is so hard to forgive. " Do unto others as you would 
have others do unto you," says our Saviour. "Do unto 
others as others do unto you," say the uncultivated in- 
stincts of the human heart, and so, in a society where the 
uncultivated predominate, fancied rudenesses are resented, 
and civilities misunderstood, while the seething fire of vin- 
dictive passions, little by little, burns out all that is kindly 
in sentiment or noble in nature. 

Here is another incentive to induce the young; to make 
themselves worthy of the best society, for the finer the cul- 
ture, the higher the development, the less we find of that 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 487 

rudeness and vulgarity which characterizes beings only 
half-developed from the gorilla stage of existence up to the 
perfect man, and who keep the society they have access to 
in a ferment. 

The school of home is the best school that life affords for 
conquering self. By performing in the domestic circle all 
the courtesies of life as faithfully as beyond it ; by the ex- 
ercise of that charity that thinketh no evil ; by the practice 
of that forgiveness which all human beings will stand in 
need of when the scenes of life close round them, it will 
become easy and natural to be courteous, charitable, and 
forgiving id all the relations of life. Rest assured, that 
man or woman, that boy or girl, who is rude and ill-man- 
nered, outside of the domestic circle, is still worse when 
within it. Those who are thoughtful to please, anxious to 
avoid what annoys and perplexes, or is wounding, at home, 
will be equally considerate abroad. If any one's true char- 
acter is to be ascertained, study him at home. If he stands 
that test, be sure that he will never betray any confidence 
reposed in him. 

Xature has not gifted us all with great talents, nor 
placed us all in the best society. Desirable as it may 
seem to be so placed, there are many of us who would not 
feel at home were we there. But though we may not all 
be learned, or witty, or accomplished, or move in fashion- 
able circles, there is still one gift that every one may pos- 
sess, which pleases more than all else combined, without 
which, indeed, all else is valueless, — kindness of heart. 
There is a charm in that which never fails to please. 
From it is born that consideration for the feelings of 
others which, with culture, makes the true nobleman, the 
true noblewoman. Kind hearts are more than coronets 
the world over, and so we come back again to our nobility, 
the nobilitv of cultivated minds and hearts. 



488 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

There is no better society in Europe than can be found 
in cultured circles in the United States. Here, as every- 
where in the best society, those members who are not nat- 
urally kindhearted, must assume the appearance of so 
being, because cultivated society demands the appearance 
where the reality does not exist, and does not enrol 
among its permanent members those who fail in this, its 
first requisite. 

Foreigners who find themselves in circles characterized 
by bad manners and bad morals, often say that we have 
no good society ; but when they are introduced into circles 
of more refinement, they are quick to acknowledge that 
there are no women superior to our own — none who are 
better educated, more charming, or more virtuous than 
our best women are. 

This is proved by the constantly-increasing number of 
love matches between foreigners of distinction and our 
countrywomen. There is not a titled nobleman of good 
character who could not marry a woman in his own land 
that would bring him a larger dowry if he would take a 
wife out of the bourgeoisie than most American wives 
would bring him, but such a companion for life might not 
be able to meet his requirements, while in the best Amer- 
ican society he finds women who are the equals of his 
own class in breeding, cultivation, and manners. 

Some Americans have a way of sneering at " penniless 
dukes and popinjay marquises who marry American girls." 
If they were asked why it is that so few of the American 
girls who remain abroad year after year, until they are 
known in foreign circles as being "a drug in the marriage 
market," are not provided for (if titles are as thick as 
blackberries in August, as they assert), they would proba- 
bly be at loss to explain the reason satisfactorily. The 
truth is, men of cultivation, and fine feelings, and good 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 489 

manners, with titles, bear about the same relation to so- 
ciety in Europe as to number, that thoroughbred gen- 
tlemen here bear in mixed society to persons wanting in 
breeding and culture. We hear occasionally of an Amer- 
ican girl making a miserably unhappy match abroad — 
wooed and won by some worthless nobleman, who could 
not persuade any woman in his own circle to marry him. 
Such marriages should serve as warnings to our women 
that foreigners with no character, although they be of 
noble birth, are no more to be trusted than are American 
men of no character. 

The son of the so-called aristocrat of to-day in America, 
and the son of one of the oldest of European noblemen in 
Europe, may, by some turn of the wheel of fortune, be 
found working for their daily bread before the years of 
middle age have been reached. Is the American any less 
a gentleman, the man of title any less a nobleman, be- 
cause, instead of shamefully throwing himself upon the 
charity of his relatives, he has preferred independence with 
honor? Honor and shame, says the poet, from no condi- 
tion rise ; act well your part, there all the honor lies. 

Work elevates, idleness degrades. Calvert tells us that 
idleness lies at the root of most of the evils that mankind 
suffer from, and that the minds that are busy to keep other 
minds idle, are doing the basest work that a man can do. 
The idle are blind to their own worthlessness, but no others 
are blind to it. 

They who study peculiarities of life in different sections 
of our republic are invariably struck with the superiority 
of that society in which the majority maintains right views 
with regard to the education and development of their chil- 
dren, and in reference to instilling correct views as to " the 
dignity of labor." Men and women who look upon the 
idle man of to-day as the representative gentleman of his 



490 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

time, and who for this reason bring up their sons in idle- 
ness, fit them to be just what Chancellor Kent says they 
are, namely, nuisances in society. The New England idea 
is the same as that of the great English barrister, and in- 
deed the cultivated New England man is more like, and 
looks more like, the cultivated Englishman, than like the 
gentleman of any other section of his own land. A writer 
in " The Galaxy " attributes this resemblance between the 
inhabitants of New England and old England to the fact 
that a race of men cannot materially change its physical 
traits in the course of two centuries, to whatever conditions 
of climate or other external influences it may have been 
subjected. Up to thirty years ago, he says, there was not 
in England itself a more purely English people than 
that of New England. 

Bagehot, in his work, " The English Constitution," 
says : " No one can doubt that the New England States, 
if they were a separate community, would have an educa- 
tion, a political capacity, and an intelligence such as the 
numerical majority of no people, equally numerous, has 
ever possessed." 

Wherever New Englanders go, whether it be as teach- 
ers, as men of business, or as members of social circles, 
they carry with them their own healthy ideas, vigorous 
opinions, and indomitable energies, infusing them into the 
communities where they dwell, and circulating new blood 
through the old veins, while in those towns where the first 
settlers have been emigrants from all European nations, 
with no preponderance of Anglo-Saxon blood, and no large 
proportion of descendants from New England families, 
settling later, it is found that the business men are not, as 
a, rule, highly cultivated men. They have not had the 
liberal education that the business men of New England 
have had. The question naturally arises, " Why is this?" 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 491 

and the answer is found in the fact that, until after our 
civil war, men of business in these towns were not consid- 
ered the equals of idle men, or of professional men even. 
Quite naturally, parents, ambitious for their 'children's 
social position, did not wish to have them go into business, 
and chose professions for them ; while those who did go 
into business did not receive the liberal education which 
was a necessity for the professional man. 

The old saying, that manners make the man, ought to 
be changed to education makes the man, and manners are 
the gauge of his degree of culture. 

Business men, with professional men, are now the lead- 
ing men in all our towns and cities ; they are, as Calvert 
says, the men of influence, of solid worth and weight, who 
are teaching those who have despised labor, the lesson 
that mankind rests on work, moves on work, and holds its 
place in the great onward march of civilization only by 
work. 

If the foundation of our republic is self-government, its 
corner-stone is labor. If it draws its breath of life from 
character, to change the simile — character which is the 
result of self-government — what breath but corrupting 
miasma could it draw from those stagnant characters which 
are too torpid for the infusion of progressive ideas? 

The idle man, the man who does not hold his riches and 
his talents for the use of mankind, as does the manufac- 
turer with his operatives, the merchant with his subordi- 
nates, who knows of no interests outside of and beyond 
his own family, or his own selfish hobbies, is left, he and 
his, uncomfortably behind in these days. The men of 
business that stride forward, will walk past him or over 
him. Thus it was with the French noblesse after 1789; 
and so it is now with " old families " that will not learn. 
In these electric times they are thrust from their thrones 



492 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

by families that have aptitude for new things, Calvert 
tells us. An old race, he says, that cannot take in new 
principles, thereby shows that it is exhausted, is become 
mentally barren. 

Various essays, worth preserving, were written by for- 
eigners and our own journalists, during the Centennial year, 
upon the distinguishing peculiarities of the American race 
and of American society. To New York was given the 
palm for a cosmopolitan spirit, and for a gay society rival- 
ling that of Paris. 

Philadelphia society received the following tribute: Its 
merits are of that quiet, undemonstrative kind, that are 
best appreciated by long acquaintance. If not brilliant, it 
is sound and sincere ; if exclusive, it is home-loving and 
hospitable within its prescribed limits ; if somewhat dull, 
its best society is never vulgar. 

Of the society of our capital it has been said : The ele- 
ments which go to make up that grand compound which 
we call Washington society — and all admit it is a most 
fascinating conglomerate — are numerous and varied. One 
is continually brought face to face with persons of both 
sexes as to whom one wonders how they ever escaped from 
the obscurity they adorned and found their way to salons 
where they jostle the ancienne noblesse. One finds here a 
number of those whose " forbears," to use the homely word, 
took the foremost places which others who think it not wise 
to pry into ancestral records now occupy. The members 
of Congress from the rural districts, to whom hitherto a 
" husking bee" or similar provincial gathering, including 
ministerial donation parties, have been the highest form of 
social dissipation, including both sexes, are invited to dine 
with foreign ministers who have been educated in the eti- 
quette of the table as thoroughly as in the " small-talk " 
of drawing-rooms, and the manoeuvring of diplomacy. 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 493 

Boston society was commented upon as follows : A per- 
fectly unique feature of Boston is the aristocracy it breeds. 
There is no other American city that possesses this ele- 
ment. This American aristocracy has, of course, no titles ; 
but an aristocracy it is, nevertheless. Some of its mem- 
bers are richer than others ; a few are of very limited 
means ; but all keep up their traditions, gentility of man- 
ners, and purity of blood, just as sternly as any patrician 
family of Tuscany or Old Castile. The existence of this 
aristocracy gives a peculiar character to Boston. It makes 
money a secondary consideration ; wealth is less sought 
for ; business is less exciting, and the whole social machin- 
ery accordingly works much more smoothly. There is no 
rush either in the street or in the counting-house. Nobody 
seems to be in a hurry either to make a fortune or to ruin 
himself, and the New York alternative of Murray Hill or 
hell seems to be unknown here. This is supposed to have 
a very beneficial influence on the moral condition of the 
community ; at all events, the historians think so, though 
some people outside deny it. But what is true beyond any 
question is that this aristocracy, living on the incomes, 
large or small, which it possesses, does all the work of cul- 
ture for which Boston is both so celebrated and so much 
sneered at. It may be safely asserted that there is no town 
on the face of the globe which has ever accumulated within 
the same space and time such an amount of intellectual 
and artistic resources. 

This is a foreigner's one-sided opinion. Every one who 
knows anything of the best society in New York or in 
Philadelphia, and in other of our cities as well, knows that 
in all of them there are families w r ho keep up their tradi- 
tions, cultivated manners, and pride of blood just as sternly 
as do the descendants of the Puritans of England. To the 
Puritan, the Huguenot, and the Quaker colonists we owe, 



494 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

in common, our debt of gratitude as a people. This element 
of aristocracy is kept out of sight more in Philadelphia 
than it is either in Boston or in New York, because, while 
the Puritans and the Huguenots preserved with great care 
their family traditions and insignia of good descent, the 
Quakers as studiously avoided all the evidences of worldly 
pride. Consequently there are among them families in 
whose veins flows some of the oldest blood in England — 
older than that of any peer of the present time, — some of 
the members of which are ignorant of the fact. It may 
be said that they would be utterly indifferent to it if they 
did know it, but all experience shows us that there is no 
such thing as indifference concerning one's ancestry, that 
the peasant preserves his records, where he has any, as 
carefully as the peer. 

'Some Quaker families have handed down, from gen- 
eration to generation, their family Bibles with the same 
scrupulous care that the New England and the Virginia 
colonists have observed in behalf of their family portraits, 
old silver and armorial bearings, brought with them from 
the mother country. A family Bible of the edition of 1616, 
printed in London, is still in possession of a New Jersey 
Quaker family, which has descended eight generations in 
this country, in the line of the oldest member of each 
generation who bore the Christian name of the ancestor 
that brought it with him from Devonshire, in England, 
1677. The family (the Devonshire Moores) became ex- 
tinct in England more than a century ago, and the heirs in 
this country were then advertised for; a property of mil- 
lions of pounds sterling accruing to them; but the descend- 
ants of the old Quaker colonist, true to their principles, 
answered that they had enough of this world's goods, and 
refused to take the necessary legal steps which would have 
kept one of the noblest castles in England from falling to 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 495 

the crown. Of such stuff were our forefathers made. 
Where are there any men worthy of them now? 

In another Quaker household exists a family Bible of 
the Geneva version, printed in 1599. A very finely exe- 
cuted drawing of a greyhound in this Bible was the means 
by which the family were able to identify themselves with 
the English family of the same name owning the very 
estates at "Ayno-on-the-hill " in Oxfordshire, near North- 
amptonshire, from which the first ancestor emigrated,* after 
having been imprisoned in England on account of his re- 
ligious faith. But enough has been said to show that the 
Quakers possess in common with the Puritans and the early 
Dutch colonists, the same elements of aristocracy claimed 
by this English writer exclusively for the Bostonians. 
There is no denying that the Quakers also have kept up 
to a certain degree the education and the cultivation which 
has always distinguished them as a sect; although, possibly 
for the reason that their schools and colleges have not, 
until late years, presented equal advantages with those of 
New England, there has not been sufficient progress made 
in the advancement of correct views concerning the value 
of a liberal education to insure that degree of culture 
among Quakers engaged in trade, which is so generally 
found among the Boston business men. 

As soon as parents will give their sons going into trade 
the same liberal education which is now reserved for those 
who are to take up professions (as is done in France among 
the wealthy men of the provinces), then we can glory in 
the sneer of Europeans which sets us down as " a nation of 
business men." Times have changed since business men 
were looked down upon and excluded from clubs. Only 

* Kichard Haynes. By the marriage of Charlotte Haynes (heiress), 
to a duke of Bridgewater, the Haynes estate has passed into another 
family. 



496 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

one club in aristocratic England now shuts its doors upon 
them. A European, who had been passing some months 
in America, falling among its best circles, found himself at 
an English watering-place, and more than once, at the pro- 
vincial club of the town, took occasion to answer some of 
the ill-natured "flings" which some Englishmen delight 
in showering on Americans, though of course not in their 
presence. " Well, I dare say they are improving as a 
people, but you must acknowledge that they are awful 
murderers of the King's English," answered the attacking 
Englishman. " On the contrary," said the European, "I 
have heard the King's English worse murdered in the six 
weeks that I have been a member of this club, than in the 
six months that I was in America." 

To return to " the labor question." Zimmerman says 
that the first desire of every active mind is employment; 
and that from the monarch on the throne to the laborer 
in the cottage, every man should have a daily task. Bage- 
hotsays that business really interests more than pleasure; 
and this may be one reason why we find the sons of English 
earls and dukes embarking in trade. Prince Bismarck 
even has a paper mill, and displayed the product of his 
works at the World's Exposition at Vienna. The Cavalier 
di F., of Florence, in addition to his important labors as 
member of Parliament, gives personal attention to his enor- 
mous business — the exportation of marble and rags. 

Yet there are Americans who still think it a passport to 
favor with those high in position in European society, who 
have carefully mentioned the fact that they were not busi- 
ness men soon after an introduction to a foreigner. Could 
they realize the effect produced on sensible people by this 
announcement, they would be more wise in future. 

Equally foolish and self-denouncing is the course of those 
other Americans who scatter innuendoes against pride of race, 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 497 

and affect to despise it ; for, as has been well said, those only 
sneer at it who are ignorant of their own descent. In these 
times of corruption more than ever before, is there need that 
pride of worthy ancestry should be encouraged, and stainless 
names be handed down from parents to children as the most 
precious heirlooms in a republic, — heirlooms which noth- 
ing but disgrace can rob of the advantages which they 
confer. Pride of ancestry is innate, and cannot be crushed 
out by poverty, nor by the ridicule of those who know 
nothing of the past history of their families; for, although 
that power of change which is mightier than thrones or 
principalities, is ever at work, leaving its traces in the 
impoverishing of many an ancient line as the centuries 
vanish, it cannot stain an unstained name ; and herein lies 
the long-continued vitality of pride of race. Pride of 
position, pride of wealth, pride of rank, all succumb before 
this power of change, leaving only that pride of worth 
which not even poverty can subdue, until culture has failed 
to do her share in sustaining it. This pride is genuine 
and worthy pride; it looks upon no labor as degrading; 
while false pride, fostered by the. sentiments of a society 
rotten to the core, as far as correct views of the ennobling 
power of work are concerned, leads its possessor to prefer 
idleness with dependence instead of labor with indepen- 
dence. Genuine pride causes its possessor to feel that no 
work, not even the menial occupations of a billiard-marker 
or a stone-breaker, can degrade a worthy name. The last 
member of the noble Italian family Foscari acted on the 
stage for a livelihood ; the last scion of the noble French 
house of de Courcey was a carpenter at Bordeaux ; a de- 
scendant of a peer died recently in a charity hospital in 
London, after having hawked books in the streets for a 
living, rather than make his w r ants known to his numerous 
titled and wealthy relatives; even Louis Philippe taught 

32 



498 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

school in the days of his necessity.* All countries have 
their decayed or reduced families. In America, wealth is 
seldom held in one family for more than three generations ; 
but though the wealth disappears for a time, the resolute 
blood which flowed in the veins of those who made it, 
transmits its qualities to descendants who, if they hold 
right views of work, preferring independence with toil to 
ease with dependence, looking upon no form of labor as 
degrading, are sure to win it back again. God helps those 
who help themselves. 

Men who have made their fortunes speedily by lucky 
speculations, or slowly by long-continued and faithful at- 
tention to business, w T ith men who have inherited their 
money, all rank in the same category, if they have no cul- 
ture to recommend them to hold a permanent place in our 
best society, even though they should be lineal descendants 
of some of the oldest and proudest families in Europe. 
For a time, society may be beguiled by their hospitality, 
or led by curiosity of some sort or another to meet under 
the roofs of such ; but when curiosity is satisfied and hos- 
pitalities require returns, society drops those who lack its 
requirements in manners and culture, unless it is for its 
interest to keep up a show of kind feeling. Such are the 
persons who, though in society, are made to feel that they 
are not of it; and as long as there are cads and snobs in 
the world of fashion, so long will there be found people 
whose only return for hospitalities from this class will be 
impertinences. 

It has been shown that old families go down from lack 
of culture, more than from want of money, together with 
a lack of correct ideas as to what kinds of work are degrad- 

* A Philadelphia!! once said, that a man might as well be a scav- 
enger as a school- teacher } in that city, as far as social position was 
concerned. 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 499 

ing, and what kinds not degrading, to their station in life. 
We have also seen that in order to remove all grounds for 
the plea that the associations of business have a tendency 
to lower the tone of thought and rob the manners of that 
degree of refinement which our best society demands as its 
passport, the same advantages of culture must be given to 
our young men who enter counting-houses as to those who 
choose professions. In the meantime let men who are not 
in business remember if they betray any lack of culture 
they will be far more severely dealt with, by persons capa- 
ble of judging, than will the men who have not found time 
in the cares of business to perfect themselves in the evi- 
dences of culture which the cultured require. 

There are always found in every community small souls 
who, judging others by their own ignoble standard of pride, 
fancy they can wound families by public allusions to the 
occupation by which inherited money was made, or by 
sneers at the business which has brought success to a busi- 
ness man. Some of the letters published in "Puck" last 
summer contained such allusions to the antecedents of 
Xew York families. The only humiliation possible to a 
cultivated person, or to one holding right views of the 
relative merits of labor and idleness, must arise from the 
thought that these small souls belong to the human family, 
and that the individuals who hold such belittling ideas, 
and write such slurring vulgarities, are in one sense their 
brothers. The only gospel to regenerate such natures is 
the gospel of work. "When they have once subscribed to 
its tenets, life will open out new fields for them, in which 
they can seek that success which they have envied in others, 
and learn the force of the lines already quoted : 



Honor and shame from no condition risr> ; 
Act well your part, there all the honor lies." 



500 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

Success generally attends the exertion of those who start 
on this basis. 

A nobleman, reduced in circumstances, who had gone 
into business in Europe, was asked whether he made a 
good business man. He answered, " I do not know. I 
only know that I make a good business." 

The laws of change work even more wonderful revo- 
lutions in Europe than with us. The story is told of 
Charles XV, that after his coronation at Drontheim, 
upon his return to his capital, he passed the night at 
the house of a landed proprietor whose family had care- 
fully guarded for more than eight hundred years the rec- 
ord of its descent from one of the old Scandinavian kings. 
"If all had gone right," said the landholder to Charles 
XV, " I would have been crowned king at Drontheim to- 
day instead of you !" " But all did not go right for you," 
answered the king. And in this way many may console 
themselves for the hard blows dealt by fate. Had all gone 
right for them, they might to-day have been enjoying the 
wealth and the position which have fallen to the lot of 
some of their acquaintances, or they might even have held 
places among the princes and the potentates of the earth. 
Whether they would have been any happier with the addi- 
tional cares, responsibilities, and envyings which wealth 
and distinction shower upon their possessors, is another 
theme for consideration. 

It has been demonstrated in a previous chapter that 
neither wealth nor distinction is a necessary passport to our 
best society, but that good manners are an essential requi- 
site. The higher the society, the fewer are the social inhu- 
manities which are encountered. Those persons who have 
access only to so-called fashionable society find in its ranks 
many wellbred men and women, just as in a garden, roses 
and lilies blossom in the same soil with flaunting marigolds 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 501 

and gay hollyhocks, and just as the beauty of the roses and 
lilies makes even the contrast of the coarse flowers not un- 
pleasing, so the courtesies of the wellbred atone for the 
irritating social barbarities which narrow minds, bad hearts, 
and ignoble natures delight in inflicting. 

One of the first requirements of good breeding is to pass 
over without notice all omissions and commissions. This 
is the wisest course, as well as the course of the worldly 
wise. Persons unaccustomed to rudenesses, and those whose 
organizations make it impossible ever to get accustomed to 
them, sometimes find it difficult to refrain from rehearsing 
incivilities; but no other dignified notice can ever betaken 
than that which is shown in avoiding the society of the ill- 
mannered persons who inflict them. It gives too much 
importance to ignorance and self-conceit to publish incivil- 
ities. Besides, those who use the lash like to see that it- 
has brought blood. 

There are some sensitive natures whom social inhuman- 
ities affect like thorns festering in a wound. They turn 
and turn them, looking to see how the thorns have inflamed 
and swollen the delicate nerves and tissues. Pull out the 
thorns, bandage the bleeding flesh, show it to no one, keep 
it out of sight, and before you know it the pain has gone. 

This may not be easy to do in youth ; for youth is im- 
patient and quick to take offence, and equally quick to 
resent, where the nature is not under the control of Chris- 
tian principles. Age learns to be compassionate, to make 
allowances for those who have had fewer advantages in 
their youth than others; to listen less readily to the inven- 
tions of talebearers, and the whispers of slanderers, and is 
not quick to form judgments of others from recitals of 
rudenesses which may have had no foundation in fact. It 
is soon enough to believe persons capable of wanton rude- 
ness when -you have witnessed their rudeness. 



502 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

A large proportion of our dislikes spring from real or 
fancied slights, from idle gossip, and from trials of our 
temper, which it is our duty to pass over. 

Undoubtedly the best manners of oar best society are 
found in the most exclusive circles of our cities ; but no 
circle is exclusive enough to be able to keep out all the 
unmannerly. Foreigners are quick to notice that in New 
England there is more respect shown towards those who 
are advancing in years, and to the aged, than is elsewhere 
seen in America ; but this respect is everywhere the distin- 
guishing mark of our best society. Any want of what is 
due to those who have passed the noon of life, and are on 
its declining slope, in short — any lack of respectful atten- 
tions to elder persons, such as children are trained to give 
by worthy mothers, is a characteristic of plebeian blood 
and of untrained youth. 

Yet as in a republic, far more than under monarchial 
governments, men have it in their power to raise them- 
selves above the disadvantages which plebeian blood entails 
to stations of great honor and responsibility ; therefore, 
birth should be held as entirely of secondary consideration 
in social claims. If true to our principles, antecedents 
would never be mentioned in connection with such claims, 
people would then say, "The man has not used his oppor- 
tunity for self-education ; therefore avoid him," instead of 
as now : " His grandfather was a stage-driver, so of course 
he can guide a four-in-hand uncommonly well, but he has 
no savoir-vime." In Florence, some years since, a hand- 
some, well-dressed woman was shunned by Americans, be- 
cause rumor spread the report that she had once lived as 
kitchen-maid with a well-known New York gentleman. 
The story may have been true, but it was probably an in- 
vention ; and, unfortunately, America has no records to 
turn to, to confirm or contradict such fabrications. This 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 503 

is one of the weaknesses of our social structure, and the 
only way to overcome it is to make education, and not 
birth, the test of the individual. Life is too short to hob- 
nob with uncongenial and illiterate persons, who have no 
other social claims than those which a well-known name 
confers; and agreeable, wellbred persons are too few in 
number to lose the opportunity of enjoying each other's 
society because some envious woman or cowardly man has 
stigmatized one of those persons as low-born. " La 
famille est riche, mais pas de precisement la vielle roche" 
was once the reply of a Philadelphia born lady when asked 
by a foreigner in Washington if she knew a certain family 
in her own city. Any allusion to the age of the family 
was unnecessary, as the stranger had asked the simple 
question, "Do you know Mr. and Mrs. Blank?" When 
he afterwards learned that this same family had a history 
of about two hundred years in America, and a descent 
from one of the oldest families of the gentry in England, 
he lost his confidence in the reliability of information on 
such subjects in a country where antecedents are invented 
by enemies, and published to the world, more frequently 
than are the true histories of its families. 

But it is sheer folly to place any weight upon descent in 
judging of the merits of families, excepting in illustration 
of the passage of Holy Writ, that a " tree i5 known by its 
fruits." Where the ancestors have been men, and still 
more important, women of culture, we -?xpect the fruit of 
the tree to be worthy of its roots. Had the American 
lady in Florence really been a kitchen-maid with mean 
parentage, and had she, by persistent energy of character 
and systematic cultivation of her powers of mind (with 
that attention to manners which is requisite), raised her- 
self from the position of a scullion to be an object for the 
shafts of that Diana who loves a shining mark quite as 



504 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

well as death does, would she not deserve the esteem of 
the estimable, more than would the woman who is the 
possessor of advantages which transmitted culture and 
careful training can alone confer? 

There are many who, though they will not confess it, 
nevertheless hold the idea that a woman demeans herself 
by manual labor, and that if she wishes to be considered 
a gentlewoman she must lead an aimless, useless, idle life. 
Our ways and our habits have been so gradually altered 
by civilization and increase of property, that all gentle- 
women lead in these days very different lives from those 
of their ancestresses. The life led by an English lady of 
rank in the times of King Edward IV., would disgust the 
daughter of a rich New England farmer of the present 
day. A page in the diary of one reads as follows: 
" Rose at four o'clock, and helped Catharine to milk the 
cows. Six o'clock, breakfasted ; the buttock of beef too 
much boiled, and the beer a little of the stalest. Seven, 
went to walk with the lady, my mother, in the courtyard. 
Ten, went to dinner till eleven, rose from the table, the 
company all desirous of walking in the fields. Four, went 
to prayers. Six, fed the hogs and poultry. Seven, supper 
on the table. Nine o'clock, the company fast asleep; 
these late hours are very disagreeable." 

American ladies of high position are not expected to 
milk cows and feed pigs, but if circumstances oblige them 
to perform such menial duties, it is a mistake to fancy that 
it can abate one jot or one tittle of their ladyhood. The 
lady who accepts the position of a housekeeper is a lady 
still, and sometimes more of one than the woman who em- 
ploys her. If there were less false pride upon the subject, 
and reduced gentlewomen would take such positions, in- 
stead of swelling the number of teachers that vainly seek 
situations with salaries far from commensurate to the 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 505 

value of their services, how much might their own com- 
fort in life be increased, to say nothing of the advantages 
which teachers would reap by diminishing the competition. 
Many years ago, a pretentious young woman and a snob- 
bish young man (brother and sister), after their return 
home from an evening party, were criticizing the company, 
quite unaware that their sensible old uncle was lying 
awake in his chamber, and could hear every word from 
where they stood in the corridor. "Why, even the Grin- 
ders were there, and you know their grandfather was a 
grocer; I was never in such a mixed company," said the 
sister. " And we never will be again, if I can help it," 
answered the brother. The uncle called out, " Children, 
what do you think your grandfather was? He was a 
boot-maker, and some people say not a very honest one 
either. Now, go to bed." 

It is just this class of families who are always the most 
interested in the antecedents of others. Nine cases out of 
ten the man who, whenever any name is mentioned, tells 
you who the grandfather was, does not know much about 
his own grandparents. We always reach after the things 
that we do not possess, and the man of no family, when he 
acquires position, is always harping upon the subject of 
birth. With him it is not, " Are they well-educated and 
agreeable people?" but " Who are they ? What was their 
father's business ? Are they in society? Who was their grand- 
father?" 

It is time enough to go back into antecedents when any 
alliance by marriage is contemplated. Then every father 
and mother is justified in questioning closely to see whe- 
ther there are any physical weaknesses, moral defects, or 
blood-taints to be transmitted to another generation. 

Yet it must be admitted that every one does take more 
or less interest and satisfaction in hearing of the antecedents 



506 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

of supercilious or pretentious people, and learning that 
"the stock" they came from does not warrant us to expect 
any less pretension, any less superciliousness. But we 
should not exalt family into that importance which it justly 
retains in countries where property is entailed, or where to 
be of good birth is supposed to entail culture as a necessary 
consequence. As has already been said, an old family 
will lose its prestige if its members neglect that degree of 
culture which enabled their ancestors to take, and to hold, 
a foremost position in the ranks of society. "It takes 
three generations to make a gentleman," says Sir Robert 
Peel ; but, alas ! it takes only one generation to undo the 
work. Just as the proper development of the physique 
through several generations produces a higher type of or- 
ganization, so the cultivation of the moral and spiritual 
nature elevates the human soul, and gives us a higher type 
of moral and spiritual life in the individual. Here aptly 
recur the words of Caius Marius, again giving emphasis 
to the truth that it is not what our ancestors made them- 
selves, but what we make ourselves, that our standing, our 
merits, our influence depends upon. " The glory of ances- 
tors casts a light, indeed, upon their posterity ; but it only 
serves to show what the descendants are. It alike exhibits 
to public view their degeneracy and their worth." An 
English author very sensibly defines the duties of the indi- 
vidual, or rather his proper objects in life if he wishes to 
fit himself for good society, to make himself better in every 
respect than he is; to render himself agreeable to every 
one with whom he has to do; and to improve, if necessary, 
the society in which he is placed. If he can do this, he 
will not want good ociety long. It is in the power of every 
man to create it f,r himself. An agreeable and polished 
person attracts like light, and every kind of society which 
is worth entering will soon and easily open its doors to 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 507 

him, and be glad to have him in its circle. As surely as 
water finds its level, so surely will they who are fitted for 
the best society find their way to a permanent place in it; 
while those who are not fitted for it, who find the observ- 
ance of its forms irksome, may be tolerated in circles where 
they are well known ; but they carry no passport that will 
admit them into the best society of other circles. It there- 
fore benefits society that such are excluded, for it would 
become no better than a beer garden were they in the ma- 
jority. Wealth, mighty power as it is, cannot keep the 
head of vulgarity long above water in the sea of society. 
It must go down. Not low birth, then, but neglect of 
that degree of self-culture in mind and manners, which is 
the passport to our best society, can alone place the barrier 
of exclusion before its doors. " If some of our millionaires 
had studied their grammars and behavior-books in the 
respite from business, would the cultivated men and 
women who dined with the quondam shop-boy and me- 
chanic, have been sneered at for that worship of gold 
which induced them to hobnob with vulgarity and endure 
the repeated neglect of the commonest forms of etiquette?" 
asks an English writer. Some one has said that it is the 
mission of America to vulgarize the world. Not if our 
women are true to themselves and to their duties, teaching 
our youth that their demeanor to their elders should be full 
of respect ; that the demeanor of man to woman should be 
deferential; for where such ideas prevail, forms can be dis- 
pensed with without leading to that inevitable vulgarity 
which that state of society exhibits where both forms and 
deference are neglected. From familiarity to indecency 
there is but one step ; and if a woman overlooks any want 
of due respect, or the slightest familiarity, failing to show 
her disapproval in her manner, she may expect it will be 
repeated with more liberty. Let it be, then, impressed 



508 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

upon the minds of our daughters that familiarity leads to 
disrespect, disrespect to vulgarity, vulgarity or indecency 
to vice, and vice to misery. Even Godwin, who says, 
" Morality is nothing but a calculation of consequences," 
admits that action to be the best which produces the greatest 
sum of happiness; and that vice is a wrong calculation and 
virtue a right cal ulation of consequences. 

Familiarity and disrespect are not found in our best 
society any more than are vice and vulgarity. A kind con- 
sideration for the feelings of others, the absence of all pre- 
tence, and conversation leading away from gossip and 
slander, characterizes it here as everywhere. 

No better eulogy was ever written of any woman than 
that which appeared in the " Pennsylvania Mercury ," 
June 9th, 1786, of a young lady belonging to one of the 
leading families in the United States. A few lines from 
it read as follows: " If the frailties of her companions was 
the topic of conversation, she spoke but to vindicate ; when 
their virtues were admired, she joined with a fervency that 
testified her liberality. . . . No motives influenced her 
conduct but the happiness of her fellow-creatures." 

Where such women are found — women " educated in 
the paths of prudence and virtue," there will be found our 
best society. 

The best society is not always gay society; it may be 
a gay circle, or it may be a literary one, or it may be 
made up of literary people and gay people, or of people 
neither literary nor gay ; but, in order to be our best society, 
it must be largely composed of well-born, well-trained, 
and highly cultured families. Let the foreigner who asserts 
that " America has no fine society," remember that he has 
not seen all our circles. Wherever a Yfant of true refine- 
ment marks the circle, where culture is deficient and bad 
manners prevail, no matter how much wealth may lend its 



OUR BEST SOCIETY. 509 

support to vulgarity, he need n«t fancy he has seen our 
best society. But when he finds himself in a circle that is 
governed by the same laws that govern the most refined 
circles in his own land — when he meets ladies and gentle- 
men whose manners are the manners of the true gentle- 
woman and the true gentleman everywhere, then, and not 
until then, has he seen ' our best society ?" 



510 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE* 



CHAPTER XVII. 

« 

HOME LIFE — THE DISCIPLINES OF LIFE — IMMORTAL LIFE. 

" Crowned or crucified — the same 
Glows the flame 
Of her deathless love divine. 
Still the blessed mother stands, 

In all lands, 
As she watched beside thy cradle and by mine." 

— Emma Lazarus. 

" Nothing keeps the heart so fresh and young, saves it from bitter- 
ness and corrosion through the cares and conflicts and disappoint- 
ments of life, as the daily enjoyment of a happy home. May I always 
keep this in remembrance, and do everything that lies in my power 
to make our home the happiest spot on earth for our children." — From 
a Mother's Journal of 1856-57. 

" Home should be pure and happy, a sacred altar of love, a school for 
sympathy and forbearance ; a centre from which an impulse for wider 
work may spring, and whence self-sacrifice in daily trifles may swell 
into the self-sacrifice of a life for universal objects." 

—Rev. S. A. Brooke. 

All men move 

Under a canopy of love 

As broad as the blue sky above. 

. . Doubt and trouble, fear and pain 

And anguish — all are sorrows vain — 

E'en death itself shall not remain, 

Though weary deserts we may tread 

A dreary labyrinth may thread 

Through dark ways underground be led; 

Yet, if we will our guide obey, 

The dreariest path, the darkest way 

Shall issue out in endless day; 

And we on various shores now cast, 

Shall meet, our perilous voyage past, 

Each in our Father's home at last. 



HQME LIFE. 5U 

They only miss 

The coming to that final bliss — 
Who will not count it true that love, 
Blessing, not cursing, rules above ; 
And that in it we live and move. 

And one thing further we must know, 

That to believe these things are so — 

This firm faith never to forego — 

Despite of all that seems at strife 

With blessings, and with curses rife, 

That this is blessing — this is life." — Trench. 

A mother once asked a clergyman when she should begin 
to educate her child — then over three years old. " Madam/' 
was his reply, "you have lost three years already." From 
the first smile in your infant's eyes, your opportunity 
begins. Education is a mental railway, beginning at birth, 
and running on to eternity. No hand can lay it in the 
right direction but the hand of a mother. The mother's 
heart is the child's school-room. Children wall imitate 
the faults of their parents more surely than their virtues, 
and it is not easy to straighten in the woody grape-vines 
the twists that grew in green tendrils. Evil habits are in 
no way more effectually propagated among children than 
by example. Parents must be what they wish their chil- 
dren to be, and when once this great truth has taken pos- 
session of a mother's mind, her child becomes her educator, 
leading her forward, and developing her as no other influ- 
ence can lead her. 

There is no half-way resting-place for humanity; we 
are always sinking unless we are rising; going back- 
ward, unless we are pressing forward. If the heart is 
not fixed in youth on the progressive love of truth and 
purity, it will, from its own inherent selfishness, and world- 
liness, and sensuousness, sink gradually, but surely, into 
the false and the impure. The carelessness of youth passes 



512 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

into the indifference of adult life and the callousness of age. 
What can be more revolting than an old age, cold, hard, 
and selfish ? Yet this is the natural and almost unavoidable 
result in hearts whose aspirations are not for those things 
which cannot grow old, and which the world can neither 
give nor take away. 

Renan tells us that Jesus measured souls only by their 
love; that he preferred the forgiveness of an injury to a 
sacrifice ; that the love of God, charity, mutual forgiveness, 
was all that constituted his law. And it is the observance 
of this law that makes happy homes ; that keeps the heart 
young; that enables mothers to train their children for 
lives of usefulness and progress here, and. for ever increas- 
ing happiness and progress hereafter. A heart filled with 
the love of all that is noble and good, can never grow old ; 
for it will go on growing in all that is lovely and gracious, 
so long as it lives ; and, where there is perpetual growth of 
the faculties there can be no decay. We grow old, not by 
wear, but by rust ; and we can never become the prey of 
rust while our faculties are kept bright by the power and 
the exercise of earnest love. It is by our own weakness 
and indolence if our spiritual body ever gathers a wrinkle 
on its brow. 

It is the mother's privilege to plant in the hearts of her 
children these seeds of love which, if nurtured and fostered, 
will bear the blossom of perpetual youth, and the fruit of 
earnest and useful lives. It is her province to train them, 
so that they will be capable of meeting the duties and 
emergencies of life, and in so training them, we have seen 
that she keeps her own heart fresh and young, and insures 
the growth of the powers wherewith she is endowed. Our 
talents do not multiply when we fold them in a napkin of 
indifference, and bury them in the earth of our lower nature. 
No class of human beings bears a more heavy weight of 



HOME LIFE. 513 

responsibility than that which is placed beyond the neces- 
sity of effort ; and there is none whose position has a 
stronger tendency to blind it to the calls of duty. Every 
gift bestowed on us by Providence, whether of mind, body, 
or estate, is but another talent, for the employment of which 
we must one day be called to account. Therefore, those 
parents who occupy positions which place their children 
beyond the need of effort, should, when the days of their 
children's school-life draw to a close, help them to select 
some special duty or employment which will occupy and 
develop their mental life ; and so save them from the in- 
anity, ennui, and selfishness that are sure to follow in the 
footsteps of idleness 

"My son, it is better for you not to go into business ; 
you do not know anything about it, and you have such a 
distaste for it that you will never succeed/' said a dis- 
couraged father. The mother exclaimed, " You are as un- 
wise as if you had told him, when he commenced learning 
to read, that it was better for him not to learn his letters, 
as he did not already know them, and therefore never 
could learn to read." The father saw his mistake before it 
was too late to profit by it, aiding the mother in the end 
which she had sought to attain through the years of her 
son's life. And parents must have an end in view, or 
their labor will be in vain. It is idle to seek for means to 
accomplish anything until there is a distinct image in the 
mind of the thing that is to be done. This is as necessary 
in the forming of character as in the choosing of an occu- 
pation. 

Do you wish your child not to acquire the habit of evil- 
speaking ? Then you have to form the resolution never to 
deal lightly with the reputation of another, never to repeat 
a slander ; always to exercise that charity which you wish 
your child to show toward the erring. Without this 

33 



514: SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

course upon your part, all your counsels will be as naught ; 
if you delight in dwelling upon the faults of others, if 
you pull aside the mantle of charity that should be made 
to cover the infirmities of your friends, your example will 
nullify all your teaching, and your admonitions will be 
worse than lost. Do you desire your child's face to glow 
with good humor, contentment, aad satisfaction, so that its 
presence will warm and cheer, as sunbeams? Then let 
your own face be illuminated with the sunshine of love; 
for there is no home that is not shadowed, as by a cloud, 
if one countenance appears within it darkened by discon- 
tent. Kind deeds, and kind words, and loving looks are 
as truly works of charity as pecuniary gifts ; and they are 
most needed in the home circle. 

Would you cultivate moral courage in your child? 
Then say and do whatever you conscientiously believe to 
be right and true, without being influenced by the opinions 
of others, showing him that you fear nothing but failing 
to fulfil your duty. This is very difficult, because the 
customs and conventionalisms of society hedge us about 
so closely from our very infancy, that they constrain us 
when we are unconscious of it, and lead us to act, and 
to refrain from acting, in a way which our better judgment 
would forbid, did we consult its indications without being 
influenced by the world. But every mother- can at least 
show her appreciation of moral courage when it is ex- 
hibited by others, and in this way incite its growth in the 
souls of her children. Those who possess this rare faculty, 
moral courage, are enabled to act, in all the social relations 
of life, with perfect independence of the opinions of the 
world, and when not too impulsive, are governed only by 
the laws of abstract propriety, uprightness, and charity. 

Would you save your child from the evils of indolence, 
that rust which corrodes and dulls the faculties ? Then 



HOME LIFE. 515 

you must be earnest in purpose and fervent in spirit. 
Earnestness is a vitalizing force, which quickens and 
brightens the faculties. By indolence we sink ever lower 
and lower ; by earnestness we rise ever higher and higher. 
In the circle of man's evil propensities there is perhaps no 
one that is a more fruitful mother of wretchedness and 
crime than the propensity to indolence. Labor is some- 
times spoken of, from the pulpit even, as a curse from 
which we shall be delivered in the life to come. Nothing 
can be farther from the truth. Employment is the life of 
every soul, from the Most High down to the least of his 
children. There is an old proverb that tells us — " Idle- 
ness is the devil's pillow ; " and well may it be so esteemed, 
for no head ever rested long upon it, but the lips of the 
evil spirit were at its ear, breathing falsehood and temp- 
tation. 

Every hour of patient labor, whether with the hands, 
or in study, or thought, brings with it its own priceless re- 
ward in its direct effects upon the character; while jeal- 
ousy, envy, discontent, and love of scandal, are among 
the products of an idle, empty mind. "My present sit- 
uation is so much beneath me that it seems degrading to 
me to occupy it," said a young man who had taken a sit- 
uation from necessity, that he would not have taken from 
choice. It is not a high or low duty that elevates or de- 
grades a man, but the performing any duty well or ill. 
The honor or shame lies in the mode of performance, not 
in the quality of duty. Let no one complain that he has 
not been placed in the right niche. We are placed just in 
that position in life which is best adapted to overcome the 
evil dispositions of our nature, and to cultivate our powers 
of mind, and heart, and soul. Besides its use in the edu- 
cation of our powers and faculties, employment is a bless- 
ing in helping us to bear the severest trials of this life. 



516 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

When grief is tugging at our heartstrings, when our eyes 
are blinded with tears — then it is that we grope our way- 
out of our homes to work in fields that we did not choose, 
and to labor for the Master who called us. 

Wake the dreamer roughly, says Melville, drive spurs 
and goad into his heart ! He will wince, and writhe, and 
roll, and gnash his teeth, but he cannot lie still. He must 
be up and doing, from sheer torture, flying to one remedy 
after another, till he gets to work, and so finds distraction, 
solace, presently comfort ; and after a while, looking yet 
higher, hope, happiness, and reward. Sorrow-taught, he 
merges his own identity in the community, of which he is 
but an atom, taking his first step, though at a humble and 
immeasurable distance, in the track of self-sacrifice, on 
which, after more than eighteen hundred years, the foot- 
prints are still fresh, still ineffaceable. Let him weep his 
heart out, if he will ! The deeper the furrows are scored, 
the heavier shall be the harvest, the richer the garnered 
grain. Not a tear falls but it fertilizes some barren spot, 
from which hereafter shall come up the fresh verdure of 
an eternal spring. 

When the pitiless millstone of grief comes crushing down 
upon the heart and pounds it to powder, we cry aloud in 
our agony, and protest that no sorrow was ever so un- 
bearable as ours. What mole working underground was 
ever so blind as humanity to its own good? Why, that 
same grinding to powder is the only means by which the 
daintiest flour can be obtained. 

The finest nature, like the truest steel, must be tempered 
in the hottest furnace ; so much caloric would be thrown 
away on an inferior metal. Capacity for suffering infers 
also capacity for achievement ; and w 7 ho would grudge the 
pain about his brows if it reminded him he was wearing 
an imperial crown? 



HOME LIFE. 517 

" I heard the awful wail of those whose hearts 
Are broken on God's wheels ; and when I said 
To him who led my steps, ' Why bring me here? ' 
He answered, ' Have no fear ; I do but lead 
Where he directs who knows the path you need.' 
My trembling heart in terror tried to turn, 
But naming swords, the ministers of fate, 
Forever held me back, nor ceased pursuit 
Until upon the rack, my heart, bound fast, 
Writhing in torture lay. My ashen lips 
Kefused to say, ' Thy will, my God, be done.- 
And only murmured, ' Thine, O God, the power I ' 
Then groaned the wheel ; revolving round, 
Till drop by drop the blood no longer flowed ; 
For first like gushing fountains it poured forth, 
Showering accusing spray in drops on those 
Who lent their strength to turn its ponderous weight. 
With life at lowest ebb, God's angels came, 
And one, whose face was radiant with peace, 
Lifted me up and said, ' Come now with us, 
Nor grudge the pain which wrung the bitter drops 
From thy heart's core, since unto thee is given 
To walk on earth with angels sent from heaven ! ' " 

Come now with us, say the angels that are sent to sus- 
tain and comfort every soul who calls on heaven for help ; 
come now with us, and help to make others happy ; let no 
duty go unperformed while treading 

" The path of sorrow, for that path alone 
Leads to a land where sorrow is unknown." 

How often it is said that life is a school, but how few 
are the scholars who live as though they understood the 
end and object of its instructions — to fit the soul for a life 
of perpetual advancement in spiritual graces and perfec- 
tions; for no angel in heaven ever reaches a degree in per- 
fection so high that he can go no farther. How can we 
trouble ourselves over the small perplexities of life, with 
such a grand and glorious destiny in view ? 



518 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

The more perfectly we can make the occupations of our 
days combine for the growth of our being, the better we 
are preparing ourselves for happiness here and hereafter. 
Whoever leads a life of charity in this world, is fitting 
himself to perform the higher charities that will be 
required of him in the life beyond the grave. Let it 
constantly be borne in mind that charities are duties well 
performed, of whatever kind they may be; as well the 
faithful fulfilment of a duty, as the aiding of a suffering 
fellow-being. 

" The virtuous live promoting each others' bliss, 
Which in promoting they secure their own ; 
Just as a lamp which, when enkindled, is 
The enkindler of a thousand, losing none 
Of its own splendor." 

He who performs no social use, who makes no human 
being happier or better, is leading a life of utter self- 
ishness, of sinfulness in fact; for a life of selfishness is a life 
of sin. 

The true end and highest reward of labor is spiritual 
growth; and whether we employ it as a refuge from the 
storms of grief, or from the treachery or ingratitude of 
hearts that we have leaned upon, or to escape from the pitiless 
pressure of memories that would drive us mad, this growth 
brings with it the most exalted happiness we are capable 
of attaining. This happiness is the kingdom of heaven 
within us; and it is the certain and unfailing reward, or 
rather consequence, of a life of true charity. To possess 
the soul in patience, to be meek, forgiving, and charitable, 
are duties amply sufficient to tax the powers of the strong- 
est. There is no rooui for idleness anywhere. One may 
still work for goodness, though with manacled limbs, as 
some have worked. The reward comes from within, for 
the good ends we work for may be attained only for others. 



HOME LIFE. 519 

With few exceptions the benefactors of this world have 
been defrauded of their wages. The fable of Prometheus 
is still enacted in many lives. Those who scale the rocks 
that shut this world in from heaven, that they may bring 
down fire to enlighten and comfort their fellow-men, must 
not hope to escape the vulture's beak. 

Work is not only a duty, but a necessity of our nature, 
and when we fancy ourselves idle, we are, in fact, working 
for one whose wages is death. The question then is, For 
whom shall we work ? Our happiness here and hereafter 
depends upon the answer that we give. Those who labor 
with no end in view but the acquisition of perishable 
worldly advantages answer it fearfully, yet there is more 
hope for such than for those who are slothfully inactive. 
Wherever there is activity there is hope ; the freshet that 
sweeps out to sea the mud and refuse of the channel, 
leaves the river purer after its work is done; but the stag- 
nant pool, festering in the sun, breeds the malaria which 
brings death to those who dwell near it. The stream, 
though flowing in a wrong direction to be of use, may be 
diverted into channels of beneficence ; but the pool, breed- 
ing malaria, can only end its poison-distilling influence 
when drainage has caused it to disappear from the face of 
the earth. So with human beings, where there is no force 
of character there is as little hope as that the stagnant 
pool will bubble up into a living fountain. 

The kingdom of evil is readily attained. As Epictetus 
has said, every man carries in himself his own enemy, 
which he must carefully watch. We have but to follow the 
allurements of the passions, and we shall surely find this 
kingdom, we have but to fold our hands, and it will come 
to us. With the kingdom of eternal life it is not so. That 
is a prize not easily won. Faithful, untiring effort, look- 
ing ever toward eternal ends, a constant watch over our 



520 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

hearts that its springs may be kept pure and undefiled, a 
resolute determination to let no failure discourage, no ob- 
stacle turn us back, remembering that the crown of victory 
is promised only to those who persevere to the end. 

To inspire in our children this ambition, as well as to 
foster it in her own soul, is the mother's duty. And how 
can she best do it ? It is easy to preach — it is hard to 
practice. Looking around us we find the most selfish of 
human beings among those who declaim most against self- 
ishness — the most uncharitable among those who hold up 
the beauties of charity. Why is this ? How has the 
preacher failed to instil into the minds of his hearers the 
truths that have warmed his own soul into outbursts of 
eloquence ? 

It is because there is an influence, more constant and 
more potent than the preacher's, at work in the hearts of his 
hearers, the influence of example. Well may both preach- 
ers and mothers falter, and feel at times that they hardly 
know how to wait for the growth of the seed they have 
planted. Fear not, watch the field, pull up the tares by 
the root, and if the seed has been good, and the soil is good, 
there will yet be an abundant harvest for those who remain 
to gather it in. The preacher's lips may be closed in death, 
the mother's eyes of love may not be here to smile upon 
her work as the full sheaves are stored in the granary, but 
not even in death is a mother's love lost, and the sweet 
communion of her spirit will minister to the spirits of her 
children, bestowing upon them the full consciousness that 
she is not unmindful of the fruit of her labors. 

Some young mother, longing to guard her child from 
the baited traps and the masked pitfalls of life, longing to 
save him from the coldness, the malice, the falsehood, the 
rapacity of those around him, may, like the woman at the 
well in Samaria, who asked our Lord for the water that 



HOME LIFE. 521 

would enable her to sit at home and come no more to the 
well to draw, say, "Give me these seeds, that I may plant 
them so thickly in my child's heart that there will be no 
room for any evil to take root there." 

There are no seeds, fond mother, that will save your 
child wholly from evil. Your mission is to pull up the 
weeds that spring up by the side of the blades that you 
have planted, and to see that nothing is left that will ex- 
haust the soil. As the leaves put forth, watch that no 
cankerworms of pride, or envy, or conceit, gnaw at the 
tender green. Keep these slimy things away, and the har- 
vest is as sure as it can be in a world where the blight of 
frost or of mildew nips too often the fairest blossoms, or 
withers and hardens the fruit, instead of ripening it. Not 
all the mother's vigilance can avert this blight from fall- 
ing upon the lives of her children, for this work rests with 
each individual alone; but she can, by nurturing them in 
the daily enjoyment of a happy home, fill their lives with 
such sunshine that the frost and the mildew will be well- 
nigh powerless. 

There is a plate armor, too, before which, Calvert tells 
us, evils shrink away and dangers quail, — the plate armor 
of self-respect. The being who is clad in it will be able 
to walk through temptation and corruption unstained and 
unbowed. It is something higher than pride, stronger 
than self-reliance, this feeling of self-respect. It is a soul 
energy, which masters the whole being for its good, watching 
with a vigilance to which even that of mothers is drowsi- 
ness. It is the sense of duty and the sense of honor held 
in hand by the divine individuality within. 

It is the mother's province to make her children aware 
of this pure lofty self, with its tutelary authority. Having 
made them once conscious that always, everywhere, in all 
cases, in every emergency, trial, solicitation, they each carry 



522 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

with them an inseparable angel, to warn, shield, and rescue 
them, then she may loosen her mother-arms around them, 
and let them go out into the great school of life, to learn 
there the lessons which are taught by hosts of teachers and 
apostles, all placed at their posts for the great work intrusted 
to them of preparing immortal spirits for immortality. 
Through all, they will hear a voice surer, more awakening, 
more commanding, aye, even more purifying than a moth- 
er's whispers, in that overpowering sense of personal re- 
sponsibility which she has planted deep down in their 
souls. Yes, self-respect is the plate armor, which, although 
powerless to shield from sorrows that purify and invig- 
orate, will avert hostile influences that assail, will endow 
them with that respect for the rights and claims of others 
which will make them ornaments of society, and cause 
their lives to be fruitful with blessings to themselves and 
others — earnest lives, that will strengthen the faltering 
hearts of preachers, parents, and teachers in their vast 
and responsible work — dignified lives, that will be worthy 
examples in the faithful performance of duties small and 
great. 

To continue from Calvert and other writers, only God 
can see the hearts of men ; mortals can judge only by the 
actions of their kind; and manners are the most exter- 
nal manifestation by which men display their individual 
peculiarities of mind and heart. There is a dignity of 
peasants as well as of kings — the dignity that comes from 
all absence of effort, all freedom from pretence. Manners 
are the garments of the spirit, the external clothing of the 
being, in which character shows itself. If the character be 
simple and sincere, the manners will be at one with it, will 
be the natural outbirth of its traits and peculiarities. If it 
be complex and self-seeking, the manners will be artificial, 
affected, or insincere. If Christian charity reign within, 



HOME LIFE. 523 

rudeness or indifference cannot reign without. One may as 
well look for a healthy physical frame under a skin revolt- 
ing from disease, as for a healthy moral frame under man- 
ners rude and discourteous; for manners indicate the moral 
temperament quite as accurately as the physical tempera- 
ment is revealed by the complexion. 

Among the merely worldly, the difference between an 
illbred and wellbred person is that the former displays his 
bad qualities in his manners, while the latter conceals them 
all under a veil of suavity and courtesy. Selfishness 
prompts the one to be rude, and the other to be hypocritical, 
and each is alike unworthy of commendation. As long as 
sterling gold exists, there will also exist its counterfeit, but 
it cannot depreciate the value of the sterling. The fine lady 
and fine gentleman of the counterfeit will surely betray 
themselves in one way or another in some of the many 
marks of good breeding that the cultivated know. It is 
easy to rub off the gilding, and reveal the worthless coin 
beneath. 

The artificial manners and laws of social life are so over- 
loaded with conventionalisms, and a knowledge of them is 
so often made a test of goodbreeding, that much confusion 
of opinion exists regarding the requisites that constitute the 
true gentleman and gentlewoman, but these titles belong to 
something real — something not dependent on the knowl- 
edge and practice of conventionalisms, that change with 
every changing season. They belong to substantial quali- 
ties of character, which are the same yesterday, to-day, and 
to-morrow. 

In the social intercourse of equals and in domestic life, 
ill-temper, selfishness, and indifference which is a negative 
form of selfishness, are the principal sources of illbreeding. 
When the external forms of courtesy are not observed in 
the family circle, we are sure to find perpetually recurring 



524 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

contention and bickering. Rudeness is a constant source 
of irritation, because however little the members of a family 
regard civility, each will have his own way of being rude, 
and each will be disgusted or angry at some portion of the 
illbreeding of all the rest, thus provoking accusations and 
retorts. 

Or, if there be one of the number more susceptible of 
being wounded than of being made angry, God help that 
one ! Some mother who has had an ungrateful child for 
whom she has toiled and schemed, forgiving its errors, re- 
pairing its follies, re-establishing its fortunes, and who in 
return teaches her the pathos in poor King Lear's sad 
question : " Is there any cause in Nature that makes these 
hard hearts ?" forced against his own instincts to acknowl- 
edge the venom ed bite of that "serpent's tooth," with 
which, elsewhere, he compares a " thankless child." Or, 
perhaps, it is some meek wife who, day after day, year after 
year, endures the tyranny of an overbearing husband, never 
complaining, never revealing the heaviness of the weight 
which her heart carries, and looking forward to the grave 
as her only refuge from bitter, wounding words and unde- 
served reproaches. It is said that with wear and tear the 
heart gets hardened, like the muscles, and the feelings 
become blunted by ill-usage, just as the skin grows callous 
on an oarsman's hands. It is not so with all hearts, some 
there are that never harden, but carry bleeding wounds to 
the end of life. 

" It is not much this world can give, with all its subtle art ; 
And gold and gems are not the things to satisfy the heart; 
But oh, if those who cluster round the altar and the hearth 
Have gentle words and loving smiles, how beautiful is earth!" 

Fluids are said to move easily because each particle is 
without angular projections that prevent it from gliding 



HOME LIFE. 525 

smoothly with or by its companions, and in like manner 
the ease and comfort of the home circle, and of society as 
well, depends on the polish of the individual. When the 
units seek their own selfish indulgence, without regard to 
the rights of each other, the whole must form a mass of 
grating atoms in which none can be free, or at ease. 

To be thrown with people of no breeding in society, is 
annoying ; to encounter rudenesses in the home circle, is 
unbearable, especially to those of high nervous organiza- 
tions and of great sensibility. Mothers should therefore 
early train their children to regard all the courtesies of life 
as scrupulously toward each other as toward mere acquaint- 
ances and strangers. This is the only way in which we 
can secure to them the daily enjoyment of a happy home; 
for, as Burke has truly said, Manners are what vex or 
soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or 
refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible opera- 
tion, like that of the air we breathe in. There is something 
higher in politeness than Christian moralists have recog- 
nized, says Brace. In its best forms, as a simple, outgoing, 
all-pervading spirit, none but the truly religious man can 
show it ; for it is the sacrifice of self in the little habitual 
matters of life — always the best test of our principles — 
together with a respect, unaffected, for man (made in the 
image of God) as our brother under the same grand destiny. 
But, because gold is rare, gilding has been invented, which, 
without its solidity, has all its brightness ; thus to replace 
the unselfishness and kindness that we do not possess, we 
have invented politeness, which has every appearance of it, 
and which passes current in society, as our paper money 
represents our sterling coin. But it will not stand the test 
of home life. There is too much wear and tear. There 
nothing will do but the genuine, and he who is accustomed 
to the genuine likes nothing that is false. Those who are 



526 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

not accustomed to it are often deceived, rejecting the real, 
accepting the counterfeit. 

Where the rule of life is to do good and make others 
happy, there will the art be found of securing a happy 
home. Let no mother despair, feeling that her labor has 
been in vain. At a time when she least expects it, the 
fruit ripens ; she may have to wait through what seem to 
her long spring and summer months, for it is only in the 
autumn that the best fruit reaches perfection ; and some 
lives rooted in earth only blossom and bear fruit in 
heaven. 

Neither let any mother indulge in self-gratulation or 
pride that her children lead upright lives. " Call no man 
happy until he is dead," said King Cambyses. No mother 
can know, however confident she may feel before her chil- 
dren are tried, whether they may not be vanquished by 
some invincible temptation. Those who have not en- 
countered such trials of their inward power, know nothing 
of their strength. Indeed, they scarcely know the mean- 
ing of the word " virtue." 

The mother may feel thankful that her children have 
escaped such tests, that she has been able to shield them 
from temptation ; or, what is a still greater cause for re- 
joicing, that she has prepared them to meet temptation 
and conquer it, by teaching them self-control, and by in- 
spiring in them that self-respect which will make them 
actively virtuous. 

The only pride which is worthy pride, is that which 
comes from having fought and overcome temptation. 
Even then, humility becomes us better than pride, for it is 
God who gives the victory, helping those who help them- 
selves. 

Life is full of problems, and that mother who has 
studied its most important ones in reference to training her 



HOME LIFE. 527 

children aright, will walk with fear and trembling all the 
days of her own life for those who are dearer than life to 
her. In a world where the highest suffer most, where the 
noblest wander farthest, where Providence makes use of 
what we call evil to do his will, for the sake of the fuller 
and larger life that can come to us in no other way — 
through no other agency — what can a mother do but pray 
for her children, when those years arrive in which evil 
leads them to the great tree of knowledge to choose for 
themselves? God hides, under what seems to be harsh, 
cruel lessons, a love as tender as the mother's who denies 
to her child the poisonous berries which its little hands 
stretch eagerly to reach. Few are the mothers whose at- 
tention has not been called to some of these problems of 
life. It may be, her daughter has misunderstood the too 
frequent attentions of some man of the world, who, with 
no thought of marriage upon his part — who, perhaps, scoff- 
ing at the tie because of its responsibilities, has amused 
himself in the society of the young girl, winning her con- 
fidence and her affections, only to leave her for some new 
face that strikes his fancy. Such a one has picked from 
the tree of life fruit that hath a fair outside, but is wanting 
in all flavor within. She may live to give thanks for the 
fortunate escape made from uniting her life with the life 
of so selfish a being, and learn that 

" God's mercy findeth many ways 
To comfort us when least we would expect ; 
For even the rocks whereon our hopes are wrecked, 
AVhen we look back across the years, shall stand 
Like hallowed altars, reared by angels' hands : 
For life tends on and upward. By mistakes 
We learn. The hand which crushed our idols takes 
Our own, and leads us to new shrines, whose light 
Shines but the brighter for past error's night. 



528 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

All sin and sorrow, shame, disgrace and pain, 
Are made his ministers. From loss comes gain. 
Out of all ill it must be he will make 
Some good to come, for his dear mercy's sake." 

Or, perhaps, instead of a daughter, it may be a son, 
whose heroic, aspiring nature is brought to grovel in the 
mud of sensualism, through the agency of some fair, false 
destroyer of men's souls; for there are women whose whole 
life is a war against all that lifts men out of hell; serpents, 
who strike moral death with their fangs, while charming 
by their spells. It is a terrible thing to corrupt a woman, 
but it is more terrible when a woman has made herself so 
corrupt that no man can teach her aught of evil. There 
is no fate more deadly to a man than that surrender of 
himself to the wife of another in a passion that has all the 
bondage and none of the honor of marriage. And the 
sweeter, the truer, the more loyal the man's nature, the 
worse for him. 

How truly has Bulwer said, that the influence of woman 
on man for good or evil defies reasoning; that it not only 
moulds his deeds on earth, but makes or mars all that 
future which lies between his life and his gravestone, and 
of whatsoever may lie beyond the grave. 

Saddest of all perad ventures, it may be that the son has 
lost his faith in womankind because of the worthlessness 
of character made manifest in some woman dear to him; 
his sister, or his affianced it may be, or, worse still, his 
wife. For such, life stretches out like a boundless desert 
on all sides, in which there is no green oasis, no cool, fresh 
fountain of water. He cannot escape it, he must traverse 
it to the very shores of the river of death. 

Unfaithfulness on the husband's part is an offence against 
custom and honor, and may be fatal to the peace of w T edded 
life ; but unfaithfulness on the part of the wife is a crime 



IMMORTAL LIFE. 529 

against nature, a denial of every noble instinct. The hus- 
band carries the disgrace out of the house ; the wife brings 
it to the fireside. A stain adhering to the mother is like 
a slow poison, which through invisible channels is com- 
municated to the children. With the wife's fall the pillars 
of family life crumble into utter ruin. She not only strikes 
her husband a deadly blow, such as his bitterest enemy 
would scarce deal in fair fight, but poisons her weapon be- 
sides, and leaves it sticking in the wound to burn and 
rankle and fester, that every passing hand, in careless jest 
or wanton outrage, may inflict on him mortal agony at 
will. The trust of a man once so cruelly betrayed is broken 
beyond the reach of mending. Not even in an angel from 
heaven does he feel that he can believe ao-ain. This is the 

o 

worst injury of all. The strongest, the purest, the noblest 
of earthly motives to well-doing has failed him, and from 
henceforth the man is but a lamp without a light, a watch 
without a mainspring, a body without a soul. 

Balzac says, in his " Physiology of Marriage," "Perish 
the virtue of seven virgins rather than the sacred chastity 
of one wife and mother ! A young girl abandoned by her 
seducer may still deserve all our compassion and respect. 
Oaths have been violated, confidence has been betrayed; 
the unhappy victim is still innocent; she may still become 
a faithful spouse, a loving mother ; while, however exem- 
plary the subsequent conduct of a faithless wife may be, 
the fruits of her fault are ineffaceable." 

Only work and hard work, under some lofty aspiration, 

actuated by some great and generous object, can lift the 

betrayed husband out of his depth of sorrow, and rouse 

him from his apathy of despair. Thus only can he wrestle 

with the demon that has entered into his heart; thus only 

cast him out, and, trampling on him, rise to a higher life 

than that from which he has been dragged down. In self- 

34 



530 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

sacrifice, and in living for the good and happiness of his 
kind, will he find the only talisman that can set him free — 
not at once, but, like other permanent results, gradually, 
and in the lapse of time ; so, mounting step by step, and 
gaining strength as he ascends, he shall look down from 
the unassailable heights of forgiveness on the lesser souls 
that can never reach to wound him now; forgiveness, free, 
complete and unconditional as that which he himself pleads 
for from his God. 

Or, still again, may it not be that the mother, moved by 
ambition, hasgiven her pure-minded and happy daughter 
to a husband whose greatest attraction is his wealth; who 
possesses few sensibilities other than those that man shares 
with animals ; no warmth of feeling save that of the senses ; 
no holy tenderness, nor the delicacy that results from this. 
The real womanhood of a wife has no corresponding part 
in such a husband. Her deepest voice lacks a response; 
the deeper her cry, the more dead his silence. The fault 
may be none of his; he cannot give her what never lived 
in his soul. But the wretchedness, the moral deterioration, 
on her side, attendant on such a false and shallow life, 
without strength enough to keep the soul pure and sweet, 
are amongst the most pitiable wrongs that mortals suffer. 
Then, if in the midst of such a life, the most dangerous 
temptation that can assail a good woman should come to 
her — that of love veiled in a friendship which she never 
questions until the veil is lifted — what agony for the daugh- 
ter to realize the full meaning of the w T ords, "bought with 
a price," in the barter that she has made of her happiness! 
Though she may never sin but once, and then only in 
thought, though she may be utterly innocent in the eyes of 
the world, yet, because of her very purity and innocence, 
will she suffer, by force of self accusation and self-abase- 
ment, the torment of the victim and the criminal. 



IMMORTAL LIFE. 531 

Is not such a possibility enough to deter mothers from 
taking the responsibility of urging daughters from homes 
where they are contented and happy, into a state of life for 
which they are not prepared? Should not mothers rather 
seek to give their children a higher view of the duties and 
responsibilities of life, which will lead them, even without 
reference to other than worldly objects, to a higher stand- 
ard of attainment and character ? The natural feelings and 
interests of the young are not sufficient guides in that mo- 
mentous step which, though pointed out by nature, is 
fraught with difficulties under the most favorable circum- 
stances, and is made happy or miserable according to the 
use made of reason and judgment in entering upon it. 

In the extreme uncertaintv of a voiing; girl's fate, over 
which she has no control, it may appear difficult to her 
mother to determine how to prepare her for positions so 
different as those of married or single life ; but a sound 
and thorough education is all the preparation needed for 
either ; not mere acquisition of knowledge, but an educa- 
tion that will develop, exercise, and train the mental 
powers and faculties and fit them for labor, should serious 
labor be required ; an education that will create sympathy 
with every real interest of mankind, and keep heart and 
mind ever awake and active. She who by such an educa- 
tion is made most fit to be a truly worthy wife, most fit to 
acquit herself of the mother's high office, will also be most 
fit to stand alone, to be self-supporting even, should such 
be her lot. 

The good or ill success of any education is not to be 
tested by the variety of acquirement, but by its efficiency 
in giving the full use of the moral and intellectual facul- 
ties, wherewith to meet the duties and the struggles of life. 
The cultivation of the understanding, the development of 
the powers of the mind, is the work of the teacher ; moral 



532 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

training is the conscious or unconscious work of the pa- 
rents, more especially of the mother,* and commences long 
before one word of precept can be understood — spiritual 
training is inspired, not taught. 

"You will make your children very selfish, requiring 
them to ask permission to play with each other's toys, and 
causing them to thank each other each time they return 
them, as though it were a great privilege; instead of allow- 
ing them to use their toys in common, as children generally 
do," said one mother to another, whose ideas differed as to 
the training of children. "I hope not/ 7 was the answer; 
" I wish to make them respect each other's rights, that they 
may early learn the rights which property confers, and not 
entertain confused ideas upon the subject; and I also 
wish to teach them to be courteous to each other." If all 
children were early taught to respect the rights of others, 
would there be such disregard of those rights as we see in- 
creasing every year in our social life, as well as in our busi- 
ness world ? 

Virtue is born of good habits, and the formation of 
habits may be said to constitute almost the whole work of 
education. The natural disposition and the circumstances 
of life are, in one sense, beyond the mother's control ; but 
she can create habits, which shall mould character and pre- 
pare the mind to maintain that habitual sense of duty which 
gives command over the passions, power to fight tempta- 
tion, and which makes obedience to principle comparatively 
easy under most circumstances. It is to the influence of 
habits, and not to individual acts (which may be prompted 
by a momentary impulse), that we must look to give worth 
and consistency to conduct. Our social and domestic life 
is made or marred by the habits which have grown into a 

* "The education of children," says Mrs. Edgeworth, "is begun 
by those who first smile upon them." 



IMMORTAL LIFE. 533 

second nature. It is not in any occasional act of civility or 
kindness that the charm of either home or society consists, 
but in the habits of courtesy and the respecting of the rights 
of those around us — whose outward expression is our man- 
ner — an expression which, if not habitual, can rarely be 
borrowed with success. Until we learn the secret of form- 
ing habits, it will be vain for mothers to hope for success 
in educating their children. The proverbial cases of the 
spendthrift children of prudent parents, and the profligate 
children of religious ones, bear witness to the frequent 
failure of well-meant systems of education ; for however 
admirable the precepts inculcated, there is in such systems 
no endeavor to form the habits, whence a certain course 
of action will flow. 

Take the habit of evil speaking, of discussing scandals, 
of repeating gossip in the family circle. Let the pre- 
cepts be what they may in such a home, the lessons at the 
fireside, or " around the board," will make such precepts 
of no avail. Scandal-loving, gossip-repeating, tale-invent- 
ing parents will rear a brood possessing the same tastes, 
the same deteriorating habits. A mother's example sketches 
the outline of her child's character. A mother's example 
sinks down into the heart of her child, like snowflakes 
into the heart of the ocean. And how can it be otherwise? 
Has he not been taught to revere and honor his mother? 
And can he be persuaded that her conduct and her practices 
are not worthy of imitation ? Not even in a parent's death 
is the influence of example lost to children ; whether for 
good or for evil it continues through life ; for as " love 
lives on to bless when those who love are hidden in the 
grave," so does the evil that is committed die not with the 
parent, but continues its baleful influence over the child 
when the soul that exerted it has passed into realms of 
purifying and endless progression. Let a mother cautiously 



534 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE 

avoid speaking evil of others ; let her be careful never to 
exhibit faults that the mantle of charity should cover; let 
her regard reputation as a gem of too great value to be 
trifled with, and then let her precepts be such as are calcu- 
lated to excite an abhorrence of evil-speaking, of tattling, 
of uncharitable construction of the motives of others ; and, 
having commenced with her children early in life, she will 
be able to create such a peculiar sensitiveness upon the 
subject, that not only the habit of bridling the tongue will 
have been acquired, but her children will learn to avoid 
the presence of the slanderer as that of a deadly viper. 

It is all very well to say that calumny is injurious only 
when it has the power to make us what it represents us to 
be, but there is a vulgar saying that has passed into a 
proverb, because of its truth : " Only throw mud enough 
and some of it will stick ;" and slander, having once 
seized on a fair name for its prey, never altogether loosens 
its hold, but slumbering for a score of years, will yet, 
when it looks dead, .have power still to lift its hydra-head 
and eject its poison. 

It is not enough that the habit of repeating idle gossip 
and vile slanders is not encouraged, as long as a parent sets 
the example of persistently attributing action good in itself 
to motives, mean, contemptible, and base. In that wholesale 
imputation of unworthy motives, in which, to the student of 
the human heart, parents reveal that their own standard is 
not a high one, and that they are simply judging others by 
the motives which would have actuated themselves had their 
relative positions been reversed — they build in the charac- 
ters of their children the foundation of that want of trust, 
that suspicion of others which, becoming in time the habit 
of their lives, sheds around them a poison that, like the 
shadow of the deadly Upas tree, blights all that it falls 
upon. There is no deadlier disturber of the peace of fami- 



IMMORTAL LIFE. 535 

lies. Like a brood of caterpillars, such suspicions eat out 
all the tender green of the leaves from the tree of family 
life, leaving nothing but boughs of skeleton verdure, 
which but too plainly reveal their exquisite mechanism 
when it is too late for faith to protect them. 

There are some natures that all through life give gold 
and receive base metal in return, or, at the best, only silver; 
who possess spirits that are strong to battle with wrong- 
doing and evil, meanness and injustice, wherever they are 
found outside of the family circle, yet are as weak as reeds 
when 

" Smitten by hands they only knew to trust." 

At last there comes a time, perhaps, of hushed voices, 
stealthy footsteps, and a darkened room, growing yet 
strangely darker with the shadows of the death angel's 
wings, when to have given gold for silver in all the rela- 
tions of life enables them to leave it without misgivings 
for the future, without regret for the past. Or, perhaps, 
arriving through long years of discipline and untold 
sorrows, they may even on earth attain that highest, noblest 
type of benevolence and devotion, in which they give their 
gold neither for silver nor for copper, but freely, without 
return at all. The harvest of such lives is already yellow 
in the light that is shining on it from the golden hills of 
heaven. 

In no place do the laws of good-breeding bear more 
gratifying results than in the home circle, where, stripped 
of their mere formality, tempered with love, and fostered 
by all kindly impulses, they improve the character and 
bear the choicest fruits. A true gentlewoman w r ill show as 
much courtesy, and observe all the little duties of polite- 
ness as unfailingly toward every member of her family as 
toward the greatest strangers. A true gentleman will 



526 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

never forget that if he is bound to exercise courtesy and 
kindness in his intercourse with the world, he is doubly 
bound to do so in his intercourse with those who depend 
upon him for advice, protection, and example. Children 
trained in such homes will be quick to show to their elders 
the respect which is their due, to their young companions 
that consideration for their feelings which they expect to 
meet with in return, and to domestics that patience which 
even the best too often require. The visitor in such a 
household is not entertained with affairs of the kitchen and 
nursery, and scandal finds no favor ; peace and good will 
are permanent household gods. Such parents are never 
careless in reference to the associates of their children. 
They know that it takes but a little leaven of vulgarity to 
leaven the whole lump. 

Mothers often fail to train their children aright from 
neglecting to commence until after habits have been formed. 
Habits have been compared to handcuffs — easily put on 
and difficult to rid oneself of. 

Young children are excellent judges of the motives and 
feelings of those who have the control of them, and if 
parents would be respected and have their influence abiding, 
they must treat their children with perfect candor and up- 
rightness. If the mother attempts to cheat them into a com- 
pliance with her wishes, they will not only in turn try to 
deceive, but they will lose all confidence in her. Parents 
who are over-indulgent are seldom just, and children value 
justice and strict adherence to promises more than indul- 
gence. Genuine politeness is a great fosterer of family 
love, and no one can have really good manners who is not 
habitually polished at home. Parents should never receive 
any little attention from their children without thanking 
them for it, never ask a favor of them but in courteous 
terms, never reply to their questions in monosyllables, or 



IMMORTAL LIFE. 537 

indulge in the rudeness of paying no attention to a ques- 
tion, and then their children will be ashamed to do such 
things themselves. 

Both parents and teachers too often allow habits of dis- 
respect to be formed — rude, rough, insolent habits, making 
the stereotyped excuse : " They mean nothing by it," which, 
if we look at it aright, is worse than no excuse at all. Such 
habits, formed in the home circle, crop out in the bad man- 
ners that are found in society. Respect breeds respect in 
all conditions of life. The influence of the higher reacts on 
the lower, and insolence breeds insolence as the only method 
of self-assertion possible. We know this by ourselves. 
When we are rudely treated, we involuntarily feel ourselves 
ready for retaliation, as our protest against the indignity 
oifered. To accept it meekly would seem to us dishonor- 
ing and mean-spirited, and we resent it, showing our re- 
sentment in a refined and befitting manner. Influence 
goes from the higher down to the lower — it does not 
ascend. 

Servants who thoroughly understand their work should 
be left to do it without too much interference. A petulant, 
fault-finding mistress will make a bad servant of a good 
one. Nothing so entirely vulgarizes a household as a tone 
of hostility between servants and employers. A mistress 
should remember that the best servants she can get are not 
faultless, but are liable to the same errors, temptations, and 
passions as their employers. She will endeavor to correct 
their faults and not to provoke them ; above all, she will 
treat them, and encourage her children to treat them, with 
uniform kindness and civility, remembering that service is 
a relationship of employer and employed, and not of master 
and slave. One can never overestimate the effect of sym- 
pathy in dealing with a class of inferior rank to our own. 

It is not enough to be just and liberal to one's servants, 



538 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

one should also show sympathy by taking kindly interest 
in their circumstances and general well-being, by looking 
after their comfort, especially when ill, respecting their 
religious prejudices, and by not too closely curtailing their 
amusements. 

Many of the complaints of bad servants have their rise 
in the bad temper, the injustice, and the tyranny of their mis- 
tresses. When mistresses are what they should be, ser- 
vants will be what they ought to be. On the other hand 
the disrespect of a servant should never be passed over 
lightly. It should be met with immediate and dignified 
reproof, as should any fall from duty, such as neglect of 
work, want of punctuality, or prevarication. A persis- 
tence in faults can only be dealt with by dismissal. A 
good mistress knows when to be severe, as well as when to 
be kind. 

The wheels of domestic life need the oil of civility to make 
them run smoothly, quite as much as the wheels of society, 
and where it is freely used they neither rust nor wear out 
in the service of love. Grumbling and " nagging/' or that 
habit of fault-finding that some indulge in, in the home 
circle is a terribly trying one. It wi] I in time make sour the 
sweetest temper, and wear even lovo threadbare. It is the 
little foxes that eat up the corn; the little misfortunes, annoy- 
ances, perplexities, which render life often a burden ; the little 
omissions and commissions which perpetually prick and 
scourge us, and keep us heart-sore. There ic an old prov- 
erb : To make a devil you must take an angel. Constant 
nagging, persistent mispreresentation of motives, suspicions 
of evil where no evil was meant, will complete the work 
in all but the finest and most heroic natures. They alone 
can stand the fiery test, coming out purer and stronger for 
the ordeal. George Eliot says, wc can only get better by 
having people about us who raise good feelings. This is 



IMMORTAL LIFE. 539 

one of the secrets of the happiness of some households. 
Emerson says we need not trouble ourselves about immor- 
tality ; if we deserve it we will have it. So in the family 
circle, parents who deserve tender trust and sympathetic 
love will receive it. Children who are habituated to ob- 
serve the commandment, "Be kind to one another," will 
find in mature life how strong the bonds of affection may 
be made that bind the members of home together. Where 
the jarring and clashing of rude manners has broken bit 
after bit from the household shrine, until the cold breath 
of selfishness has extinguished the flame of love, long ex- 
posed to its influence before it went out entirely — there will 
be found no bonds of affection to draw together those who 
are thus separated. The inmates of such homes must wait 
for another life to open up for them new opportunities of 
regaining all that they have lost out of this life. 

" To step aside from Love is hell- 
To walk with Love is heaven." 

One fruitful source of family difficulties is found in con- 
flicting interests. Have no business relations with any one 
who is dear to you. Few natures can stand this test. 
AVhen the two brothers came to our Lord with their dis- 
putes, he said, " Beware of covetousness." This is the 
shoal whereon, under fair and smiling skies, the bark of 
family love is often hopelessly wrecked. 

Children are affectionate and sensitive, some more so 
than others, it is true. The most sensitive ones suffer 
cruelly in the hardening process. Parents who do not wish 
the hearts of their children to become callous should never 
repress their tenderness, never humiliate them before 
others. They may often be obliged to check and restrain 
them, but reproof should be administered to each singly, 
and entirely alone. The same rule applies to servants, 



540 . SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

and where it is not regarded, mortification may incite 
manifestations of disrespect, for neither children nor ser- 
vants are exempt from the weaknesses of humanity, and 
reproof administered before any one is always irritating 
and never profitable. Only those persons indulge in it who 
are thoughtless, and those who from ill-temper purposely 
annoy and wound. 

Some parents prohibit their children from talking and 
laughing at the table ; it is unphysiological ; it is cruelty. 
Joyousness promotes the circulation of the blood, enlivens 
it, invigorates it, sends it tingling to the remotest part of 
the system, carrying with it animation, vigor, and life. 
Discard controversy from the dining-table. Discourage 
subjects which may invite political or religious rancor. 
Let every topic introduced be calculated to instruct, to in- 
terest, to amuse. Do not let the mind run on business or 
previous mishaps, or past disappointments. Never tell 
bad news at the table, nor for half an hour before. Let 
all you have to communicate be, if possible, of a gladsome, 
joyous character, calculated to bring out pleasant remarks 
or agreeable associations. Especially never administer a 
reproof at the social board, either to a servant or child ; 
find fault with nothing; speak unkindly to no one. If 
remarks are made of the absent, let them be charitable 
ones, and thus will thoughts of the family table come 
across the memory in after years, when all have been scat- 
tered, and some laid in their final resting-place, bringing 
with them grateful recollection of the parents who made 
home happy, and of the daily meals, doubly welcome for 
the kindly feelings fostered there 

Family disagreements should never be made known 
outside of the family, where it can be avoided. The world 
is severe in its judgment of those who expose the faults 
of kindred, . no matter what the provocation may be. 



IMMORTAL LIFE. 541 

There is nothing that is more vulgar or more repulsive 
than a family where its members are at " sword's points/' 
as it were, with each other, to say nothing of its unchris- 
tian condition. 

Where families dwell together in unity, where the confi- 
dence is mutual between husband and wife, between parents 
and children, there is nothing so lovely and attractive in the 
whole circle of domestic relations as such companionship 
exhibits But to sustain this condition of things, children, 
as they mature into young men and young women, must 
repay the abundant sympathy that they have received, 
from their childhood up to manhood and womanhood, 
with abundant sympathy in return. They must exert them- 
selves to be interested in all that interests their parents, 
and try to give that sympathetic attention to the expression 
of feelings and views which parents have earned the right 
to expect. Who but the mother, that has daily, for long 
years, given hours to the amusement of her little ones, play- 
ing games with them, or reading books to them day after 
day, year after year, that possessed no interest for her 
except as they interested and amused her children — who 
has unweariedly devoted her life to their instruction and 
happiness, yielding them at last to others when the time 
has arrived in which they have found objects of love 
dearer than a parent can be, — crushing down in her heart, 
for their sakes, all that illimitable longing for their presence 
in her empty home which a fond mother feels — who but 
such a mother can know the bitter disappointment of find- 
ing that her children fail her in hours w T hen she most 
needs the support of their sympathy and love ? 

Yet, let no good mother fear that such a skeleton as a 
child's ingratitude will ever enter any chamber of her 
heart to chill and sap by its ghostly presence the very life- 
blood of her veins ; for by the fulness of the measure of 



542 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

love and devotion which she has given, shall she receive 
measure in return. 

" It does not pay to be a mother," was once said by a 
mother If it were so, no sadder truth could ever find 
utterance in this world. It does not pay to be an un- 
faithful mother ; it does not pay to be a selfish mother ; 
but the mother who finds her happiness in the happiness 
of her children, and whose children, in return love her 
very shadow, as it were, what is there in this life that pays 
better than such love pays ? 

For those unfortunates who have not had such mothers, 
whose surrounding influences in childhood have been such 
as to start them on the race of life with the wrong goal 
in view, there is still a remedy as long as the period of 
youth lasts. After the age of thirty, habits, manners, and 
character become fixed. Before that time, although it is a 
giant task, the direction may be changed, the bent wood of 
the sapling turned straight, the work of self-education, 
self-improvement, self-culture, may be commenced with 
such enduring resolve as to promise a victory over habits, 
manners, and character. Hard as it is for youth to get 
the wrong start in life because of the incapacity of parents 
to direct, it has many hours to look forward to in which it 
can regain all that has been lost; and sometimes it does 
seem as though such competitors gain in the race upon 
others who had the start long before them. 

" There is no time like the Eternal Now V' came from 
the lips of a dying mother, as her only daughter sat in the 
solemn silence of midnight alone by her bed. The 
mother's words struck chords that thrilled through her 
child as some grand piece of music thrills, or the grander 
tones of the crashing thunder. There is no time like the 
eternal now, for if we improve it as we ought, we shall 
have no past to regret and no future to fear. A 'new year 



IMMORTAL LIFE. 543 

approaches, and looking back upon the old one drawing 
near its close, we now have the opportunity of profiting by 
its lessons. There is no teacher so likely to have his lessons 
heeded as experience. Who is there living, that in this 
retrospective glance cannot see his mistakes lying about, op- 
pressive reminders of lost opportunities ? Recall the offence 
of wife, or husband, of child, or sister, or brother, too closely 
scanned and unforgiven ; the belief denied to some loving 
heart that would have blessed your life with its believing if 
it had been trusted as loyally as it trusted you ; the charity 
refused ; the rudeness committed; the wrong done and un- 
requited; with the ghostly army of errors of heart and 
judgment, to haunt us as we look back across the waste 
which the dying year has brought! Xow is the time in 
which it rests with us to make in the future a better, truer 
life than we have made in the past. It is our misfortune 
that our strength is not always equal to our aspirations; the 
result of which is that we make resolutions and break them. 
The gifts of life are not promised to all that seek them, 
but to all that endure to the end. The best of us may 
never, in this existence, win them; may only catch 
glimpses of that promised land where they all lie; but, 
although now and then falling with weariness by the way- 
side, or getting entangled in the briers that arrest our 
progress, we cannot sink in the mire of life, if we keep on 
the one sure path of duty which leads to our eternal home. 
Here, we cannot all have happy homes; were it so we 
would never look forward to the promised home which not 
even death nor the grave can keep the weary heart from 
longing for. With a wise hand our heavenly Father has 
veiled the glories of that eternal home from mortal eyes. 
To behold them would but make us less happy than we 
are now, when the joys that we do feel are the greatest 
that we know of. Were we allowed to have a glimpse of 



544 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the bliss of future worlds, our impatience to attain to our 
homes in those mansions, not made with hands, would em- 
bitter our lives here. 

How soon and how easily may the barriers of life be 
overleapt ? How many thousands, now bearing the daily 
burden of their wretched earthly homes, the sting of un- 
kindness or ingratitude, the serpent bite of treachery, the 
gnawing worm of faithlessness, the bitter uses of adversity, 
would, forgetful of their duties, throw off these burdens 
and sever the chains that hold their spirits to their prison- 
nouses ! 

But it is God's will that we should work out our desti- 
nation on earth as far as it is to be fulfilled here ; that we 
should not voluntarily and capriciously put an end to our 
earthly careers, in moments when our strength succumbs 
to our agony, and endurance no longer seems possible; but 
that we should pursue it to its furthest goal. Therefore, 
he placed as guardians before the closed gates of eternity, 
fear and anxious doubt, aud the awful stillness of death, 
and impenetrable darkness. These guardians drive back 
the human race, that it may pursue to the end its appointed 
path on earth. In spite of all the discomforts of life, in 
spite of our impatient longing to be reunited with the 
friends who have gone before us, the terrors that surround 
eternity keep many anguished souls from rashly leaping over 
the barrier which separates them from their real fatherland. 

We all have a work to do in our earthly homes before 
we leave them — a work of self-development ; and as we 
perform it we either grow in likeness to the brutes, or in 
likeness to him who conferred upon us the sublime power 
which we call spirit. Virtue does not exist for the sake 
of this world alone, but for eternity. In the realm of the 
All-Just the law of retribution reigns as it reigns here. 

Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, 



IMMORTAL LIFE. 545 

precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, every man's work shall 
be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it 
shall be revealed by fire (the fire of trial?); and the fire 
shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any 
man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall 
receive a reward. 

Those persons who do not believe in a hell of burning 
lakes of brimstone, must still believe in the unquenchable 
fire of vain regrets, in the undying worm of remorseful 
self-reproach. From this hell we can only be delivered 
by daily efforts to keep down our evil passions, and to 
develop and mature our higher and nobler natures, .by doing 
unto others as we would be done by. The light of the 
scorching fires of God's disciplining providence comes sooner 
or later to all who do otherwise, to all who render evil for 
good. "Whoso rewardeth evil for good, evil shall not de- 
part from his house."* 

There is no discipline in home life that advances us as 
much as that which teaches us to yield our wills to those 
who have a claim upon us to do so, even in trifling every- 
day affairs; the wife to the husband, children to their 
parents and teachers. Of course, where a principle is con- 
cerned, we must always be firm ; this requires moral cour- 
age, the daily practice of which virtue raises the character 
to heights of spiritual grandeur, beyond the comprehension 
of those who indulge their wills merely because it is their 
will. They who stoop to meannesses and treacheries 
towards their kind, indulging in covetousness, hatred, and 
envy, are preparing the way for the rioting of that worm 
and that fire from which they cannot escape. 

The work of self-culture, of self-improvement, cannot be 
a matter of indifference to any one, for upon it depends the 
happiness of our earthly homes, as well as our fitness for 

* Proverbs, 17 : 13. 
35 



546 SENSIBLE ETIQUETTE. 

the enjoyments of a spiritual existence. The manifold 
sufferings which noble beings here below endure for the 
sake of their beloved ones — friend for friend, parents for 
children — do but help us in this work of discipline ; and 
although these tears, these cares, these sacrifices, may re- 
main unrequited here, eternity brings the recompense. 

Toward that home where dwell the loved ones who have 
gone before, let us unwaveringly fix our eyes, determining 
that nothing shall retard us in our heaven-appointed task 
of forming and perfecting our characters. If there be a 
wrong which we have committed, let us repair it; if there 
be a fellow-being whom we have offended, let us seek rec- 
onciliation ; they who have offended us, let us forgive as 
we hope to be forgiven ; let us strive without ceasing to 
rise above unworthy ambitions, envy, and all vicious ten- 
dencies.; that when the angel of death comes to lead us 
from the fleeting joys of our earthly homes, we may be pre- 
pared to enjoy the inconceivable and steadfast bliss of 
eternity. Charity, love to God and love to man, is the 
parent and source of every spiritual perfection. Only they 
who dwell in love dwell in God; only they who dwell in 
love can make happy homes on earth, or enjoy the life be- 
yond, where all is love. 

It is in vain to ask this gift — a heart of love — of the 
Angel of Life. We must mould our own material, quarry 
our own nature, make our own character. 

" An angel came to me one night, 
In glorious beauty clothed, 
And with sweet words of hope and joy 
My way-worn spirit soothed. 

" He bade me ask for any gift 
Within his power to give ; 
For Death's kind arms to bear me hence, 
Or countless years to live. 



IMMORTAL LIFE. 547 

" For riches, honor, or domain-, 
A sceptre, crown and throne : 
For friends with loving hearts to bless 
My cherished, happy home." 

" 'Dear angel bright,' I cried, 
1 From each and all I'll part, 
If thou'lt bestow that richer gift, 
A pure and spotless heart.' 

"The angel smiled (with such a smile 
As angols only have), 
Then sighing low, a diamond glass 
Into my hand he gave. 

" ' Oh mine is not the power,' he said, 
1 To fit thy heart for heaven ; 
The gift to purify thy soul 
Unto thyself is given. 

" ' But look within the faithful glass 
That I have given thee, 
And there, within thy outer self, 
Thy inner self thou'lt see.' 

" I looked, 'twas strange, but there I saw 
Two beings joined in one ; 
For clearly through the outer shell 
A radiant spirit shone. 

" Long, long I gazed, and years on years 
Seemed there to pass away, 
And still I saw that spirit bright 
Grow brighter every day. 

" At last 'twas free — free from the shell 
That dimmed its brilliant glow, 
And upward flew on angel wings 
And left the shell below." 



Newport, October, 1877. 



ADDENDA. 



I. 

Ix chapter viii, page 267, the following statement is 
made. 

" Many persons are beginning to follow the sensible 
custom introduced in England, of leaving off all bright 
colors and adhering strictly to black, without using the 
materials which are confined to mourning dress." The 
" Christian Register" of April 27th ? has an article on 
" Mourning Apparel," which is worthy the consideration 
of all persons of influence, and which reads as follows: 

" The principal objections against the custom of wear- 
ing mourning apparel are that it is useless, inconvenient, 
and expensive. For what use does it serve? To remind 
me I am in affliction ? I do not need any such memento. 
To point me out to others as a mourner? I most certainly 
do not wish to be so pointed out. Shall the sable garb be 
adopted then because it is grateful to my feelings, because 
it is a Kind of solace to me? I can gain no consolation 
from it. 

" If, then, the custom is useless, it is still more objection- 
able on account of the inconvenience and expense. It is 
inconvenient, because it throws the care of purchasing and 
making clothes upon a family at the very moment when, 
on every account, it most needs seclusion and quietness ; 

( 549 ) 



550 ADDENDA. 

when, worn out with care, and watching, and sorrow, it 
needs retirement and relief. That the expense presses 
heavily upon the poor, is a matter very well known, and, 
I believe, generally regretted. If, then, there is a custom 
in the community which is of no real benefit, and is a real 
burden, it would seem a clear inference that it ought to 
be discouraged. If there be any who fear that they shall 
be too soon forgotten among men when they are gone, let 
them be reminded that it depends upon themselves, not upon 
the habiliments of their friends ; upon their character, not 
upon their obsequies, whether they shall be remembered. 
'The memorial of virtue/ saith the wisdom of Solomon, 
' is immortal/ When it is present, men take example of 
it ; and when it is gone they deserve it ; it weareth a crown 
and triumph forever." 

In behalf of those who cling to deep mourning garments, 
and who do not feel that the garb evidences their unchris- 
tian resignation even more than it does their grief, it may 
be said that the thick veil, prescribed by custom, is a great 
protection to their feelings, screening, as it often does, the 
tearful eyes and the quivering lips. But the thick crape 
veil is prejudicial to health, and therefore should not be 
worn when black veils, of other materials, will answer the 
purpose equally well. 



n. 



The compiler has more than once alluded to the desira- 
bility of gentlewomen, who are dependent upon their own 
exertions for a living, seeking situations as housekeepers, 
instead of swelling the ranks of teachers. The objection 



ADDENDA. 551 

that is made is the treatment that housekeepers too often 
receive; but this is only where ladies accept such situations 
in families that are not wellbred. If a woman of good 
family and of culture accepts the position of a housekeeper 
in America in an equally cultured family, she is made to 
feel that she is a member of the family ; and if she is faith- 
ful to the trust reposed in her, and worthy of the attention 
that is paid to her, she will make herself to all intents and 
purposes one of them. 

On page 312 an allusion is made to such a housekeeper. 
The following note of invitation, written by the late Mrs. 
Dr. Rush (a daughter of Mr. Ridgway) to the daughter-in- 
law of this housekeeper, gives evidence of the kind and 
friendly relation that existed between the two families. 

The "Mrs. " who was to dine with Mrs. Rush was 

the housekeeper of her father. The one alluded to as 

"C r" was the housekeeper's grandson, and the ward of 

Mr. Ridgway. 

"My leak Kachel : 

" Mrs. and my cousin S W have promised to take 

tea with me to-morrow evening. I shall be much pleased if you will 

join them. I hope C is better. 

" Yours, 

"Ann Hush " 

There is nothing menial in a situation of this descrip- 
tion, and it is to be hoped that the rapidly increasing num- 
bers of reduced gentlewomen in our country will have a 
tendency to restore the old-fashioned ideas on this subject, 
and that the situation of housekeeper will once more be- 
come as honorable as it was then. All situations, every- 
where, where trust is reposed, and which require integrity 
of character, should be held to be especially honorable ones. 
Salary should not be the object of housekeepesr as much 



552 ADDENDA. 

as a home for life; and where the relative duties are un- 
derstood and sustained, the housekeeper who has been long 
in a family, is never turned off in old age to end her days 
in poverty and neglect. Therefore, and for other reasons, 
the situation of housekeeper in a wellbred family is one 
that is much to be preferred by middle-aged women, who 
are suddenly cast upon their own resources, to the situa- 
tion of a teacher. 

" Do you know that was once a teacher in public 

schools, and that her mother was a housekeeper, etc., etc.?" 
asked one lady of another. The answer was, "No, I do 
not know it, but I know to the contrary; though if it were 
true, I should esteem her all. the more for her indepen- 
dence, and value her friendship more than ever." 

This is the right kind of feeling. " From the moment 
a. woman supports herself, or those she loves, by her work," 
wrote the late Mrs. H. M. Field, "she ought to ascend in 
the social as she does in the moral scale. She is not to be 
pitied or patronized, but to be respected for her spirit of 
independence. Women of wealth who in their early life 
have been teachers, sometimes seem anxious to conceal a 
fact which they ought to recall with pride. .... If the 
intellect of woman is cultivated, if she has any special gift, 
she will seek work, for she finds the keenest pleasure in 
the exercise of her talent, and a just pride in compelling 

the public to recognize it The Queen of England 

herself writes books, and receives her copyright as much as 
any poor author. To work, then, and to work for pay, is 

no disgrace I would say to every young woman, 

work; and if you cannot work with your brain (and genius, 
even talent, is given to few), work with your hands, bravely, 
openly, keeping your self-respect and your independence. 
Work was never meant to be a curse or a shame ; it is the 
surest element of growth and happiness. With woman 



ADDENDA. 553 

rests especially the power to right her own sex as to this 
absurd prejudice, by working herself when gifted with 
great powers, and recognizing with a real sympathy the 

work, however humble, of other women No woman 

is free from responsibility toward her own sex. All are to 
bear one another's burdens, and to share one another's sor- 
rows. This is the true sisterhood of 'woman. However 
widely apart in station, they react upon each other for good 
or for evil It is time that all false, arbitrary dis- 
tinctions should cease. The ranks of workers are swelling 
too rapidly " — including many well-born and delicately 
nurtured — " and the time must come when the position of 
a woman will depend only on the dignity of her life, and 
the cultivation of her mind." — Page 68, "The Young 
Lady's Friend." 



III. 



In chapter iii, page 110, occur the following lines: 
"As long as the very kindness of heart which shapes 
the course of some members of society is made to confront 
them in some odious form, as long as there is so little of 
that charity that thinketh no evil, and so much of that cre- 
dence of the vilest insinuations that it would seem only 
demons could breathe, it is as Utopian to look for any esprit 
de corps in society as to look for a change of character in 
the depraved, or for angelic natures in the human." 

In connection with this assertion, the compiler wishes to 
impress upon the young, the importance of holding right 
views as to their relative duties to their friends and to their 
acquaintances. For instance, it is not necessary for you to 
" take up the cudgels," as it is significantly expressed, 



554 ADDENDA. 

for an acquaintance, although, when a friend is attacked, 
it is your duty to check the tide of gossip, if gossip it be, 
or to deny the slander, in case it be a slander. Further 
than .this, it is not wise to interfere as long as that confu- 
sion of ideas prevails in reference to the duties of persons 
who stand in the relation of friends to each other, which is 
so little creditable to their discernment and to the quality 
of their moral organization. " If a man comes to me with 
any slander concerning me or mine, he must give the name 
of his informant," says one. Certainly he must. If he is 
sufficiently your friend to wish to benefit you by putting 
it in your power to deny or to disprove the slander, he 
will give you the name; but honor requires that in making 
use of what he tells you, you shall not give his name as 
authority without his consent. 

Thus, the aspect of duty changes, according to the rela- 
tions which the parties most interested sustain toward each 
other. You are bound not to tell your friend anything 
concerning himself that is slanderous, or even disagreeable, 
without giving the authority. He to whom you give this 
proof of friendship is equally bound to you not to betray 
the trust you have reposed in him. Your duties are toward 
each other, not toward the third party. You are at liberty 
to make use of the information given to you by your friend 
to refute the slander. He takes the risk of giving offence, 
because of his desire to serve you; but if he is a man of 
honor, and he looks upon you as his equal morally, he will 
no more charge you not to give his name as authority than 
he would charge you not to steal any money out of a purse 
that he leaves with you for safe keeping. 

The average man of the world says : " Mind your own 
business, and keep out of trouble. If you try to help a 
friend, the chances are that you will be placed in the posi- 
tion of a third man interfering to separate two who arc 



ADDENDA. 555 

quarrelling; they turn upon hirn, and he catches all the 
blows that fall." Here, then, lies the secret why so few 
are willing to assume the offices of a friend. They do not 
wish the belligerents to turn upon them. 

While the duty is none the less binding because of the 
danger that one incurs, it is a duty that should be exercised 
with the greatest caution, and it is one that ought not to 
be expected of any but those who are capable of a thor- 
oughly loyal friendship. The Psalmist puts these words 
into the mouth of the Most Hio;h : " Thou thouffhtest that 
I was altogether such an one as thyself." Let the friend 
who would do another the priceless service of helping him 
to disprove a cruel slander, first be sure that his friend is 
altogether such an one as himself; that the friendship is as 
exalted upon one side as upon the other; and then the 
result is as unchangeable as that of a correctly demonstrated 
problem in Euclid. " Friendship depends upon its own 
instinct for integrity."* 

In order to make the relative duties of friend to friend 
still clearer, let us suppose that A and B are friends who have 
equal confidence in each other. They, unpremeditatedly, 
fall into a confidential talk, in which they touch upon the 
private grievances of each, and suddenly discover a new 
bond of sympathy between them in the fact that each has 
had to bear a slander of the same nature attached to their 
family histories. Possibly each may have heard the slander 
concerning the other, and it may be that neither of them 
has ever heard it of himself, or one of them may never 
have heard it. Let us take the latter case. 

A has heard the slander of himself and of his friend (B), 
but B has heard the slander that concerns his friend (A) 



* Faces and Masks ; or A Plea for Fidelity in Friendship. By 
Stephen H. Tyng, Jr., D.D. 



556 ADDENDA. 

only. A is fully convinced in his own mind that the tale 
(about B) is a fiction from beginning to end, but, as he has 
had no proof to sustain his convictions, he has let a score 
or two of years pass without alluding to the slander, satis- 
fying himself with contradicting it when it was asserted in 
his presence. But during this unpremeditated exchange 
of confidence, B puts A in possession of certain facts which 
give the lie to the slander (concerning himself (B) ), and 
(thus unconsciously) makes it the duty of A to communi- 
cate to B the fact that there is a slander attached to his 
(B's) family history, which slander up to this time he had 
been ignorant of. 

In order to put it in the power of B to disprove the 
slander, A gives the name of X, an acquaintance of both, 
who was the first to repeat the slander to A, as a bit of 
veritable history concerning B's antecedents. A and B, as 
friends, owe each other duties which they do not owe to X, 
and which X does not owe to either of them. X has vio- 
lated no confidences, nor outraged any professions of friend- 
ship, in repeating an on dit which was currently reported 
and credited, and if B believes his friend's statement, he will 
at once go to X, to ask him his authority, or to put it in 
X's power to disprove and deny the slander in future. 
If B does not credit the statement, he does not go to X at 
all. He ought to know the character of his friend suffi- 
ciently to believe or to doubt on the moment. We will 
suppose that B does not doubt A, and that he goes to X, 
and that X has forgotten having made the statement, and 
denies it point-blank (insisting that he never heard it before, 
and demanding the name of the informer), as the average 
man surely will do when accused of having repeated 
anything libellous of another. In such a case, if B has 
so little faith in A as to have his confidence in his in- 
tegrity shaken, so that he suspects him of inventing the 



ADDENDA. 557 

tale (Query : Could a man harbor such a suspicion of one 
who had given such a proof of friendliness ?), it would 
still be the duty of B to shield A until his unworthiness 
was proved ; and, therefore, B would refuse to give A's 
name without A's permission, unless the friendship has 
been one of those one-sided ones, in which gold is given for 
copper gilded to resemble gold. Tlun, if so, A stands 
between the two, and catches the blows of both. In other 
words, A, who has courageously endeavored to be of use to 
B, though at the expense of losing the favor of the acquain- 
tance X, is bruited abroad, by both B and X, as a mischief- 
making tale-bearer and an inventor of scandal. 

This is too great a risk to run for any friend, excepting 
the truest and noblest. Damon may do it for Pythias, and 
Pythias for Damon, but for nothing less in the way of 
friendship will a man expose himself to such a possibility 
after he has seen through the mask of one false friend. If 
Pythias gives Damon such a proof of the sterling worth of 
his half of the friendship, Damon will not be excelled by 
him in generosity of sentiment; he will go to X with all 
the tact of a courtier, and will put him in possession of 
the evidence necessary to nail the falsehood, without com- 
promising Pythias in any way. It is not w^orth one's while 
to call people to account for repeating gossip that they hear, 
unless one has some claim of friendship or connection, for it 
is the custom of the age to talk of one another's affairs, 
and it must be endured with other grievances ; but it is 
worth the while of every man and every woman slandered 
to give the lie to the slander, and where it becomes libel to 
follow it up until it is crushed out forever. People will 
talk of their neighbors, and will repeat what is said about 
them, though even the most inveterate gossip is careful not 
to mention the name of her informant in serving up a 
spicy dish of scandal concerning the absent. To the ques- 



558 ADDENDA. 

tion, " Who told you ? " she cautiously answers : " I give you 
the story as I heard it, I do not give my authority." 

This is the way of the world in speaking of mere ac- 
quaintances, and must continue to be the way of the world 
as long as gossip has charms for society. This require- 
ment is as binding in good society as is that which makes it 
necessary to give the name of the one who repeats a slander 
if you go with it to those whom it concerns. Your duties 
are to the subject of it, not to the world at large. What 
is duty in one case is treachery in another, and the blow of 
treachery when struck by a haud that you have loved, 
cleaves down through the brain to the heart. 

Fripndship of all ties most binds the heart, 
And faith in friendship is the noblest part. 

To sum up, true friendship requires in case one friend 
knows that a slander of another has no foundation in fact, 
that the friend should put it in the power of the slandered 
one to disprove it by giving the authority. As long as 
there is the least doubt in the mind as to whether it is fic- 
tion or fact, one is not bound to notice it in any way ; but, 
knowing it to be false, if you would do as you would be 
done by, you should not hesitate about putting it in the 
power of your friend to prove its falsity, unless you do not 
possess sufficient moral courage to give the name of your 
informant. Then, say nothing. But if you give the name, 
not only friendship but honor requires that your friend 
should shield you from suspicion. He owes no duty to 
the one whose mistake he hastens to rectify, and whose 
duty it then becomes in turn to give his authority to the 
slandered one, or to hasten to correct his informant. Nothing 
short of permission by the friend, to make use of his name, 
justifies the one who has been put on the track of hunting 
down the slander for revealing his authority. 

As long as the world lasts, and its inhabitants are all 



ADDENDA. 559 

sinners, and not saints and angels, we will, all of us, more 
or less, according to our several degrees of culture, repeat 
what we hear of neighbors and acquaintances to whom 
we are bound by no ties of friendship, although those 
whom we love are held sacred and defended when at- 
tacked. We have no right to feel offended with those 
who do us the honor to take an interest in our affairs, 
although we may take ever so little interest in theirs. 
To expect them not to repeat what they hear is to show a 
great want of knowledge as to some of the characteristics 
of human nature. 

What we have a right to expect, and all that we have a 
right to expect from those acquaintances whom we do not 
classify with our true, loyal friends, is, that after they have 
been informed that fiction is not fact that they shall not 
continue to circulate it as fact. He who expects more ex- 
pects too much from human nature. 

What will be the course of the one who, wearing the 
mask of friendship, goes with a slander to the subject of 
it? It will be repeated without the name. The subject 
of it receives it as a blow in the dark, or as a stab in the 
back, and is powerless to aid himself. 

When he asks for light he is told, "Oh! I can't tell 
stories and names, too." Then, if he is a man of correct 
moral vision, or a woman, as we will suppose, the answer 
is: "Do not bring me any slanders that concern me un- 
less you give me the name of your informant." Next, the 
reply may be : " Well, you see there are so many persons 
who have told me — forty at least. I cannot give any 
names, but everybody believes it." " Why did you come 
to me with it, then, if you cannot give me your author- 
ity ?" Here the mask drops off, and were Nuda Veritas 
to prompt the tongue, the answer would be in character 
not unlike the one given by Mrs. Verjuice to Madame Deb- 



560 ADDENDA. 

onnair, under an illustration in "Punch," where a young 
and pretty woman is catechizing an ugly one, as follows : 

Mrs. Debonnair (urged by an irresistible impulse to ask 
a plain question): "Tell me, Mrs. Verjuice, when you 
come to see me why do you so persistently ring the praises 
of Mrs. Whatsernayme?" 

Mrs. Verjuice (urged by an irresistible impulse to 
answer the plain truth): "Well, Mrs. Debonnair, the fact 
is, I am not fortunate, good-looking, popular, and beloved, 
as you are, and, consequently, I hate you. I cannot tell you 
so in so many words, but I can insinuate by my extrava- 
gant praise of Mrs. Whatsernayme (whom, by the by, I 
hate almost as much as I hate you), that I rate very low 
the gifts which you enjoy and which I so bitterly envy you." 

In other words, the one who brings you tales of what 
is said of you, mingling them skilfully with comments of 
her own, as to what other people say of you, with now 
and then an assertion that she has not told you the half 
that she has heard, is the false friend. She never leaves 
you that you do not wonder, after she has gone, that you 
have submitted so tamely to what no one would dare to 
say who did not wear the mask of friendship. 

She never puts it in your power to disprove a slander and 
check its course. She thrusts its barbed point into your 
heart and leaves it there to rankle and do its work. Here, 
then, are the two courses by which one can distinguish be- 
tween true and false friendship. No true friend repeats 
slanders or unkind comments without putting it in your 
power to vindicate yourself. He does it for your good, 
feeling confidence in the use that a true friend will make 
of such information. 

The false friend does not repeat tales for your good, but 
for the purpose of gratifying the baser instincts of human 
nature, which lead those who envy a condition of life which 



ADDENDA. 561 

is unattainable to them, or the possession of qualities 
equally unattainable, to delight in inflicting pain and 
creating annoyance in the hearts and minds of those who 
have attained such condition, or who possess such qualities. 

Far be it from any one who knows human nature in its 
unregenerate state, to counsel men or women to follow the 
golden rule, in the matter of striving to help a friend in put- 
ting down a slander. It is one of those matters where it is 
wiser to take heed to Goethe's injunction: "Do the duty 
that lies nearest to thee;" and we all have a duty to exer- 
cise toward ourselves, before we assume any unnecessary 
responsibilities. It may be, in fact, as the world considers 
it, quixotic to interfere in any way in such cases, unless 
the party slandered is connected to you by ties of blood. 
Then there can be no question in the minds of any one as 
to your duty ; though, even among relatives, differing ideas 
are held as to what constitutes nobleness of character and 
honesty of purpose. Therefore, beware of doing your duty 
even, if you shrink from suffering. Be prepared for the 
penalty before you put yourself in the way of having a 
forgetful human being shift a weight of responsibility on to 
your shoulders (in the eyes of the world), which belongs to 
another to carry, and not to you. But if this advice comes 
too late to any reader, let him remember that it is not given 
to the worthless to stagger under a cross that may bring a 
martyr's crown to the one who bears it. 

"A man can carry a hundredweight on his shoulders 
with less inconvenience than a few pounds about his heart." 

The heart of many a human being is aching to-day with 
the anguish of its load ; a load that because of its intense 
weight demoralizes the individual almost, for the time being, 
who has not trained for it. It is the sudden blow that 
makes us reel and stagger; the blow for which we are 

OS / 

totally unprepared that prostrates us. 

36 



562 ADDENDA. 

Some one has compared a man's progress toward his 
grave to that of a sculler laboring up stream. By taking 
the established and conventional course, he avoids collision 
with his kind, and proceeds in comparative safety. It is 
they who turn aside that encounter obstacles ; and, if they 
turn for the purpose of aiding and succoring one of their 
own kind, is it not better — the weariness, the pain, the an- 
guish, when the service is repaid with ingratitude, than is 
the safe journey completed without fulfilling any acts of 
charity or of devotion ? Where would we find philanthro- 
pists, philosophers, poets even, who "learn in suffering what 
they teach in song," if each human being were resolutely 
bent upon serving self and making self his God ? The 
very moment that any one suffers because of the sin of an- 
other, let that sin be what it may, that moment the indi- 
vidual is following, although in an immeasurably humble 
way, in the footsteps of our blessed Lord. The same cup 
is given to drink from; false witnesses spring up; deser- 
tion, reproaches, the crown of thorns, the spear-wound, all 
follow. After the crucifixion comes the resurrection. He 
who has " been tried and not found wanting," has learned, 
in the various schools of trial through which he has passed, 
"how sublime a thing it is to suffer and grow strong!" 

Pour gates there are that open into heaven : 
The first, of deep-hued amethyst,, fold on fold; 

The second, jacinth is ; the third, of pearl ; 

The fourth, of inwrought work of jewelled gold. 

The amethyst gate they only enter in 

In whom both " faith and charity " abound ; 

Good works the jacinth; "pure of heart" the pearl; 
The fourth, they vjho've been tried nor wanting found. 

Weary of earth, heart-sore and faint, there came 

A pilgrim spirit to the purple gate ; 
Its violet folds were closed, and opened not 

To give one glimpse of heaven's glorious state. 



ADDENDA. 563 

On to the jacinth gate the traveller went; 

Its amber crystal rose like wall of glass, 
Nor open swung at her imploring cry, 

Within to let the weary wanderer pass. 

The gate of pearl, with prism-glowing tints, 
Feebly she next with faltering hands essayed ; 

A message came ! " Pass to the golden gate ! 
Our King awaits thee there, be not afraid!" 

Emboldened thus, the woman hastened on : 

The gate flew open ; throngs on either side 
Welcomed with amaranth wreaths and sound of harps, 

As forth to meet her came " The Crucified." 

Within the jewelled gate the pilgrim passed, 

Led by her Lord, transfigured like to him, 
While wave on wave of music flowed through heaven, 

From chanting, winged hosts of seraphim. 

Amazed, the earth-born to her Saviour said, 

" What wrought I, Lord, for thy dear name on earth, 

That thou should'st meet me at the gate of gold — 
Accused, reviled, my good name robbed of worth ?" 

" Living for others, thou hast lived for me ; 

Conquering thyself, the conqueror's crown is given; 
Faithful in all committed to thy care, 

Hath brought thee through the golden gate to heaven !" 

And now, no longer weary nor heart-sore, 

This pilgrim spirit works for mortals still ; 
No longer fettered by earth's fears and cares, 

But free as angels are to do God's will. 

Now, to the way-worn on this planet left, 

On viewless pinions borne she comes and goes ; 

They know not whence the calm sustaining strength 
That to them ofttimes like a river flows ! 

Ah, messengers there are from heaven to earth, 

In these our days, as in the days of old ; 
And those sent back to strengthen and console, 

Are they who enter by the gate of gold ! 



APPENDIX. 



The compiler does not claim one original idea as her 
own in the foregoing pages, having gleaned her sheaves 
from various fields. She regrets that she is not able to 
give the names of all the authors whose writings she has 
made use of, connecting them, as she has done very often, 
without notifying the reader of the change from one to 
another. Many passages are taken from her note-book, 
where they were jotted down hastily, sometimes in pencil, 
and frequently without giving the name of the author, or 
of the book from which it was taken. She hopes that 
living authors will be gratified by finding that the seed 
which they have sown, in some cases scores of years ago, 
is now planted again for new harvests. 

Among the many writers whose words are garnered here, 
and among the books and essays from which the compila- 
tion has been chiefly made, are the following : 

NAMES OF AUTHORS QUOTED FROM : 

Aim6-Martin, Brotherton, Alice W., 

Aristotle, Bulwer, 

Bacon, Lord, Burke, 

Bagehot, Burney, Evelina, 

Brace, Bushnell, 

Brookes, Calvert, 

( 565 ) 



566 



APPENDIX. 



Campari, Madame, 

Carlyle, 

Chandler, Mary G., 

Chesterfield, Lord, 

Cicero, 

Clarke, Dr., 

Col Iyer, 

Davis, Rebecca Harding, 

Dickens, 

Dix, Rev. Dr., 

Dumas, 

Elliott, Rev. G., 

Emerson, 

Epictetus, 

Faithful, Emily, 

Furness, Rev. Dr., 

Grey, Mrs. William, 

Gurowski, 

Hamerton, 

Haweis, 

Hawthorne, 

Holland, 

Hooker, 

Hubner, 

Isocrates, 

Kingsley, 

Lamartine, 

Various unknown 



Lambert, Marchioness de, 
Langton, Lady Gore, 
Locke, 
Longfellow, 
Marius, Caius, 
May, Rev. Joseph, 
Melville, J. W., 
Moore, Clara J., 
Murray, Grenville, 
Ouida, 
Pattison, 

Procter, Adelaide, 
Reade, Winwood, 
Robertson, 
Ruskin, 

Saussure, Madame Necker de, 
Sheridan, 

Sherwood, Mrs. John, 
Shirreff, Emily, 
Socrates, 

Spencer, Herbert, 
Spinoza, 
Spurgeon, 
Swift, 
Thackeray, 
Tocqueville, de, 
Zimmerman, 
Journalists. 



NAMES OF BOOKS AND ESSAYS ON GOOD MANNERS 
QUOTED FROM : 

The Art of Conversation. 
New York Social Etiquette. 
Mixing in Society. 



APPENDIX. 567 



The Habits of Good Society. 
High Life Below Stairs. 
Ball-giving and Ball-going. 
Manners of Modern Society. 
Modern Etiquette. 
Concerning Etiquette. 
Unsettled Points of Etiquette. 
Code du Ceremonial Guide. 
Petit TraitS de la Politesse. 
Les Lois de la Bonne Societe. 










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